UN expresses concern to Kyiv over video of shooting of Russian prisoners

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) believes the video footage of the shooting of Russian prisoners of war by the Ukrainian military is authentic, the organization’s spokeswoman Marta Hurtado told TASS.

She added that OHCHR had expressed concern to Ukraine’s defense ministry about mistreatment of Russian prisoners of war, “including alleged killings.”

Killing spree or ordered crime? Ukrainian soldiers shoot Russian prisoners of war

The video was published online in early February. The Russian investigative committee said the video showed “Ukrainian nationalists shooting at close range, allegedly three Russian prisoners of war, with automatic weapons.” The authorities will investigate the incident.

The Russian Foreign Ministry blamed the shooting on the “Western curators” in Kiev, who “raised a generation of Ukrainians obsessed with hatred and national superiority.” The ministry described the reaction of international organizations to the incident as shameful. A statement from the ministry said:

“Shameful is the silence of the specialized international structures that have traded professionalism and objectivity for a desire to serve the US and other Western countries.”

In November last year, a video surfaced on the Internet showing a machine gunner with a yellow armband on his sleeve aiming at a building, from which people in Russian-looking military uniforms come out and lie on the ground. At the end of the video, someone runs around the corner of the building, the image starts to shake and the clip is cut off. A second video, captured by a drone at a similar location, shows 12 bodies in the same clothes lying in pools of blood.

The Russian Ministry of Defense stated after these publications that they showed how soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces executed Russian prisoners of war at Makeyevka in the LPR. The Russian Investigative Committee opened a criminal case for murder. Russian Ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova and Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called for a response from international organizations.

Soon after, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called the video authentic and called for an investigation into what happened. He called on both sides of the conflict to “give their troops clear instructions that there shall be no reprisals or retaliation against prisoners of war”. The Russian Foreign Ministry considered this reaction cynical.

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