Russian military shoots 6 Ukrainian POWs in Donetsk Oblast, Prosecutor General's Office says
Russian troops shot dead six captured Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers near Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office reported on Nov. 5.
Reports of murders, torture, and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war are received regularly by Ukrainian authorities.
Russian forces captured on Oct. 23 three Ukrainian soldiers during an offensive on the town of Selydove and then shot them unarmed.
A few days later, on Nov. 1, during an assault on Ukrainian lines in the Pokrovsk direction, Russian soldiers killed three more Ukrainian prisoners of war, shooting them, the Prosecutor General's Office said.
The Prosecutor General's Office stressed that these actions violate the Geneva Conventions and qualify as an international crime.
The Security Service of Ukraine is conducting a pre-trial investigation into the incident in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
Then-Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, on Oct. 15, called the killing of Ukrainian servicemen in captivity a "deliberate policy" of Russia.
Ukrainian law enforcement agencies have information about the killing of at least 93 Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian soldiers, the head of the War Crimes Department in Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office, Yurii Belousov, said on Oct. 4.
Some 80% of the cases of executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war were recorded in 2024, but the trend began to appear in November 2023, when "there were changes in the attitude of Russian military personnel towards our prisoners of war for the worse," Belousov said.
Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, both countries have frequently exchanged prisoners. The most recent swap occurred in mid-October, with each side bringin back 95 prisoners.
The Kyiv Independent
