The UN on Friday said it was “deeply concerned” by what it said were summary executions of prisoners of war by Russian and Ukrainian forces on the battlefield.
The allegations came shortly after Kyiv accused Russian forces of killing a captured Ukrainian serviceman who was filmed saying “glory to Ukraine” before being shot dead.
Matilda Bogner, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said that her organization had recently recorded killings by both sides.
Photo: AP
“We are deeply concerned about [the] summary execution of up to 25 Russian prisoners of war and persons hors de combat by the Ukrainian armed forces, which we have documented,” Bogner told a news conference in Kyiv.
“This was often perpetrated immediately upon capture on the battlefield,” she said.
“While we are aware of ongoing investigations by Ukraine authorities into five cases involving 22 victims, we are not aware of any prosecution of the perpetrators,” she added.
Bogner also expressed “deep” concern over the alleged executions of 15 Ukrainian prisoners by Russian armed forces after their capture.
She said that the Wagner mercenary group, which claims to be leading Russia’s assault for Bakhmut — the longest and bloodiest battle of the war — was responsible for 11 of those killings.
Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of mistreating prisoners of war since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded a year ago.
In response to the UN report, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was “unacceptable” to hold the “victim of aggression” responsible.
One UN report issued on Friday claimed that Ukrainian military personnel had subjected prisoners of war to death threats, mock executions or threats of sexual violence.
Some beatings were “purely retaliatory,” it said. “In some cases, officers beat POWs [prisoners of war] saying: ‘This is for Bucha,’” the mission reported detainees as saying, referring to a town near Kyiv where Russian forces were accused of widespread atrocities.
“Before questioning, they showed me an axe handle covered in blood as a warning,” the report quoted a Russian POW as saying.
“The questioning lasted for about an hour, and they used electricity six times, whenever they thought I was lying,” the report quoted the detainee as saying.
Ukrainian POWs quoted in the report said they were subjected to torture, sexual violence, a lack of food and water and denied medical attention.
They said they were tortured and ill-treated to extract information or as a form of punishment, the mission said.
Ukrainian prisoners reported being beaten with shovels, stabbed, subjected to electric shocks and strangled.
“Some of them lost their teeth or fingers, had their ribs, fingers or noses broken,” the report said.
“They did not just beat us, they broke us. They used their fists, legs, batons, Tasers. There were POWs who had their arms or legs broken,” one man was quoted as saying.
Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets on Friday said that he was “surprised” by the allegations against Ukrainian troops and said he had not been informed of them in advance.
On Telegram, he wrote that he wanted to “know the facts and the indisputable arguments on which the conclusions” of the UN report were based.
In a separate statement on Friday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs thanked the UN monitors for their work, but said that Ukraine “expects that the UN mission will avoid any steps that may be interpreted as equalizing the victim and the aggressor.”
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