Kremlin vows to find Ukrainians who executed POWs — RT Russia and the former Soviet Union
Moscow’s warning comes after UN called on Kyiv to investigate case
Moscow will seek to hold accountable the Ukrainian perpetrators of a summary execution of Russian prisoners of war, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman insisted on Monday.
“Russia will do everything possible within the framework of international mechanisms to draw attention to this crime and hold accountable, under the law, those involved in it,” he added. said Dmitry Peskov. Moscow will try to find the culprits, with the aim of punishing them, he added.
The Russian Defense Ministry accused Ukrainian forces of committing a war crime after a video surfaced on social media on Friday, and claimed killing POWs was a crime. “widespread practice” for the kyiv troops.
Video of the incident appears to show unarmed Russian servicemen surrendering to Ukrainian troops and lying in a row on the ground. Another showed the same scene, with soldiers in the same positions, apparently dead from gunshot wounds. Another clip, which did not include audio, appeared to show a Russian soldier exiting a building and firing at Ukrainians.
Dmitry Labunets, the Ukrainian parliament’s human rights ombudsman, claimed the killings were justified because “the Russian servicemen were not prisoners of war, but active combatants”, who he said only pretends to surrender to the Ukrainians.
The New York Times, which authenticated the videos, gave a different assessment. Rohini Haar, medical adviser at Physicians for Human Rights, told the newspaper that “to kill or wound a combatant who, having laid down his arms or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion” was a violation of the law of international armed conflict. “It looks like most of them were shot in the head,” he said of the victims.
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Videos showing the execution of Russian POWs in Ukraine are authentic – NYT
The UN has urged Kyiv to shed light on what happened, after Moscow came to public attention last week.
Senior Russian officials have condemned Ukraine and its Western supporters for downplaying such atrocities.
Former President Dmitry Medvedev has written that there can be redemption for the perpetrators, adding that the culprits deserve only “ultimate punishment” even if it will take years to materialize. State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin claimed that European nations “should realize that they are supporting a Nazi state”, just as they did in the 1930s, and called for a criminal tribunal for Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
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