Ukraine Says Russia Ordered Troops To Behead Captured Soldiers

Ukraine's chief prosecutor claims to have unearthed "horrifying evidence" that Russian soldiers decapitated Ukrainian prisoners of war in an eastern region of the country.

Accusations by each side that their opponent has violated international law have been a leitmotif in the ongoing conflict. In response to the latest allegation, Ukraine said that it will launch an investigation which, if legitimate, would add to Russia's extensive rap sheet since the invasion began in 2022.

As reported by Ukrainian news agency Suspilne on Tuesday, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General has accused Russian generals of ordering troops to execute prisoners of war in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region.

Andrey Kostin, who has held the office of Prosecutor General since July 2022, took to Facebook to decry what he termed: "horrifying evidence of Russia's criminal policy aimed at the extermination of Ukrainians."

"We have received information that Russian commanders have ordered not to take Ukrainian soldiers as prisoners but to kill them with inhumane cruelty—by decapitation. The fact of decapitation of a Ukrainian defender was recorded in the Donetsk region," Kostin's post read.

Kostin did not provide specific evidence to back up the allegation. However, the Telegram account for the Office of the Prosecutor General said that the matter came to light "during aerial reconnaissance at one of the combat positions in the Donetsk region."

"The Ukrainian military found a damaged armored vehicle of the Defense Forces of Ukraine. It contained the severed head of a Ukrainian defender."

The post went on to say that a pre-trial investigation has been launched by the Ukrainian Security Service to establish the full circumstances of the incident and determine the specific Russian servicemembers involved.

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs for a comment on the allegations.

Any mistreatment of prisoners of war – up to and including the summary executions alleged here - amounts to a war crime according to the third Geneva Convention, and this accusation is only the latest in a litany of similar charges Ukraine has made against its adversary.

Ukraine has accused Russia of grave violations of international law since the beginning of the conflict in February 2022, including the torture and sexual assault of Ukrainian citizens, and the deliberate targeting of civilians during combat.

Ukraine's charges have been echoed by some international organizations.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the country's commissioner for children's right, on the charges of unlawful deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

In October, a UN report found that Russian forces had engaged in "indiscriminate" attacks in Ukraine using explosive weapons, leading to deaths and injuries of Ukrainian civilians and the destruction of civilian objects.

The investigation by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine also confirmed previous findings that Russian authorities had "used torture in a widespread and systematic way in various types of detention facilities which they maintained."

However, the report also highlighted cases in which Ukrainian authorities had committed violations of human rights against persons they suspected to be collaborating with Russian forces.

Do you have a story we should be covering? Do you have any questions about this article? Contact LiveNews@newsweek.com.

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.