Probe launched into mass execution of Ukrainian POWs as UN documents Russia’s systematic torture and other war crimes

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General announced on 1 October that a war crimes investigation has been initiated after video footage that appears to show Russian invaders killing sixteen Ukrainian prisoners of war in Donetsk oblast.  Like numerous other cases of summary executions, including beheadings, the investigation is under Article 438 § 2 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code (war crime linked with homicide),

The drone footage was apparently first posted on some Ukrainian Telegram channels on 1 October, with the killing of 16 POWs believed to have taken place  near the villages of Mykolaiivka and Sukhy Yar in Pokrovsk raion.  The footage shows how Ukrainian defenders emerge from a forest area and get into line.  At this point the Russians opened fire, clearly shooting to kill, and later shooting dead any Ukrainians who were still alive.

The criminal investigation now underway will be run by the Security Service [SBU] for Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.  In commenting on the report, Andriy Kostin, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General said that, if confirmed, this would be the worst case, known to date, of such summary executions of Ukrainian POWs. It was, he said, “yet another indication that the killing and torture of prisoners of war are not isolated incidents. This is a deliberate policy of the Russian military and political leadership”

In fact, there are serious grounds for believing that Russia effectively executed over 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war at the notorious Olenivka prison on 29 July 2022.  One of the witnesses, Yevhen Chudnetsov, referred to the likely deliberate explosion as a “show execution”. Russia has, however, systematically blocked any UN or Red Cross investigation.  

Horrific atrocities were reported from soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, however the scale of such war crimes against prisoners of war, who have protected status under international law, has increased dramatically over the last year.

News of this latest likely atrocity coincided with the presentation of a UN report on the Treatment of Prisoners of War and Update on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine during the period from 1 June to 31 August 2024.  

Danielle Bell, Head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, spoke of the “widespread and systematic torture” to which Russian authorities had subjected Ukrainian POWs.  The monitors had interviewed 174 former POWs, including five medics who had provided “credible and reliable details of torture and severe ill-treatment” including “severe beatings, electric shocks, suffocation, tasering, prolonged stress positions, sleep deprivation, dog bites, mock executions, sensory deprivation, threats, degrading treatment, and humiliation, 68% reported sexual violence,” 

The Mission had documented the deaths of ten Ukrainian POWs due to torture, poor conditions, or inadequate medical care”.

The report notes that “The widespread use of torture and ill-treatment makes it highly unlikely that superiors and the administration of internment facilities were not aware of how Ukrainian POWs were treated. 

Many of the documented instances of torture or ill-treatment involved different State entities, suggesting significant levels of coordination between these entities and widespread knowledge of the use of torture, <> In some cases, interviewees overheard orders by supervisors to torture POWs, or experienced incidents of torture happening in front of supervisors or internal video cameras.”

Nor is this about prison staff or enforcement bodies alone.  During the presentation, Ms Bell pointed out that “Russian public figures have openly called for the inhumane treatment and execution of Ukrainian POWs, often using dehumanizing language in public forms and state-owned media,” 

The report also documents the significant increase in civilian casualties and injuries from Russia’s ongoing attacks, as well as its systematic attempts to destroy Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.   It all makes for damning reading, but frustratingly remains only a report, and not a schedule of crimes for considerable by the International Criminal Court in the Hague.