Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for EU Integration Olga Stefanishyna said that Ukrainian law enforcement will check the video of the execution of captured Russian soldiers for the presence of war crimes.
“Ukrainian authorities will of course investigate this video,” he told CNBC. At the same time, it is “very unlikely” that short video clips will become evidence of the accusations made by the Russian side.
Stefanyshina stressed that the Ukrainian soldiers were “absolutely not interested in the execution of anyone” and that they had received orders to capture “as many” soldiers as possible so that they could be replaced with Ukrainians in the future.
“Every Russian soldier who could be executed is some kind of Ukrainian that cannot be bartered, so there is no sense and no logic,” he concluded.
Asked if Kiev would allow an international investigation, Stefanyshina replied: “We’ll see. There is no problem with that.”
what’s in the video
On November 18, video footage of the bodies of Russian soldiers shot down by the Ukrainian Armed Forces began to circulate on the Internet. The video was allegedly shot in the Makeyevka district near Svatovo. As noted by the Telegram channel “Military Correspondents of the Russian Spring”, one of the videos in which the corpses appeared was shot from a drone.
On the other hand, the still-living soldiers surrender and part with their hands in the air. Ukrainian soldiers also appear in the video: one of them lies with a machine gun aimed at the surrendering soldiers, the second calls to leave the house and asks which of the prisoners is an officer. Then gunshots are heard and the video is cut.
The time the video was shot is not specified. There are no leaves on the trees in the frame, from this we can conclude that the recording is fairly recent.
response to cylinders
On the same day, Valery Fadeev, chairman of the Human Rights Council chaired by the President of Russia declarationIt will require a thorough investigation, and also directly to politicians, ambassadors, journalists and human rights activists, as well as the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organizations about the “execution” in Makiivka.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the footage of the massacre of unarmed prisoners of war by the Ukrainian Armed Forces confirms the “clumsy essence of the Kyiv regime” led by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and “those who protect and support it”.
“This brutal murder is not the first and only war crime, it is a common practice in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, actively supported by the Kyiv regime, and its Western patrons are not directly noticed,” the ministry said in a statement. .
DPR Ombudsman Daria Morozova applied Demands an impartial hearing to the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross. He stated that “it is difficult to comment on the video of the execution of soldiers surrendering in the settlement of Makiivka in the Luhansk direction without going beyond the normative vocabulary.”
Evgeny Prigozhin, owner of the Concord company and founder of the private military company (PMC) Wagner, said that despite possible executions of Russian prisoners of war, Russian forces “will not bow to provocations”. The businessman promised that the Ukrainian prisoners would return home safely. At the same time, Prigozhin doubted that the Ukrainian army “will begin to kill the Slavs in this way”, including the fact that every prisoner is required for exchange.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said it was examining the videos. “I have contacted my colleagues who said they know and are working on these videos,” Elisabeth Trossell, the organization’s press service employee, told RIA Novosti.
Source: Gazeta
Emma Matthew is a political analyst for “Social Bites”. With a keen understanding of the inner workings of government and a passion for politics, she provides insightful and informative coverage of the latest political developments.