The CNN channel released a video of the previously unknown facts of the murders of Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered. According to CNN, the latest happened last week in the Pokrovsk Axis.
The number of executions of captured soldiers by russians on the battlefield has increased, the TV channel stated.
Ukrainian military intelligence sources provided CNN with a list of 15 executions of prisoners since last November, most of which were confirmed by drone video and audio intercepts.
Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andrii Kostin told CNN that his department is investigating 28 such incidents since the start of the war, in which a total of 62 Ukrainian servicemen were killed.
The Ukrainian prosecutor's office told CNN that they consider the killings to be war crimes and part of an organized policy by the Kremlin. "If prisoners of war surrender, if they show that they are surrendering, if they are without weapons in their hands, then shooting without proper trial is a war crime," the Prosecutor General of Ukraine told CNN.
Kostin claimed that such crimes were committed in different regions of Ukraine by different units, which gives Ukraine "an opportunity to claim that such a policy is organized by the Kremlin. This is an order from specific commanders."
The Ukrainian official who provided Pokrovsk's drone footage said their unit was aware of numerous similar incidents on the front lines that had not yet been made public or investigated.
Several russian servicemen have already gone on trial on charges of such killings, including one in southern Ukraine in the Zaporizhzhia Region. The prosecutor's office released footage from a drone, which confirms that in January, a russian shot a Ukrainian soldier when he came out of his trench near Pryiutne with his hands raised.
Ukrainian intelligence also gave CNN audio recordings of intercepted orders from a russian commander with the call sign "Turk" to his subordinate on the field to kill prisoners.
The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Dr. Morris Tidball-Binz, visited Ukraine in May at Kyiv's invitation, in particular to study reports of extrajudicial killings during hostilities.
A UN investigative source told CNN that some of the apparent executions of Ukrainian soldiers were the subject of their review. "There are many of them. There is a pattern. It involves at least approval or an order not to show mercy," the source said, referring to the practice of killing prisoners.
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