Four unarmed Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) were apparently shot and killed by Russian forces in Donetsk Oblast earlier this November, adding to the five previously reported executions of Ukrainian soldiers, the Prosecutor General's Office said on Nov. 28.
According to the statement, Russian troops captured four Ukrainian defenders during an assault in the Pokrovsk sector on Nov. 22. After forcing the soldiers to surrender, Russian forces are said to have shot them with automatic weapons.
In total nine Ukrainian POWs were executed by Russia in the village of Petrivka. It was not immediately clear if the two reported executions are directly connected, or whether they occurred at the same time.
"The deliberate killing of prisoners of war constitutes a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions and is classified as a grave international crime," the Prosecutor General's Office said in a statement.
Reports of murders, torture, and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war are received regularly by Ukrainian authorities and have spiked in recent months. Most cases were recorded in the embattled Donetsk Oblast.
Last week, the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor's Office reported two other Ukrainian POWs killed by Russian troops in the Pokrovsk sector.
Ahead of the most recent reported cases, law enforcement officers previously said they were investigating 53 criminal proceedings over the executions of 177 Ukrainian soldiers, while 37 proceedings of 109 executions were registered in 2024 alone, the Prosecutor General's Office said on Nov. 22.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
(Updated: )
