Screenshot: AP
Ukraine’s Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets has called on the UN and the Red Cross to investigate video footage published by the Associated Press (AP) on Thursday purporting to show four Ukrainian prisoners of war being shot dead by their Russian captors.
In a post on Telegram on Thursday, Lubinets said the shooting, which AP said took place on 13 March in the village of Pyatykhatky, in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, was “not an isolated incident, but a systemic policy” of the Russian army “encouraged at the highest level”.
“The video clearly shows unarmed Ukrainian soldiers coming out of a destroyed building and surrendering, but the Russians shoot them dead in cold blood,” Lubinets wrote.
The footage published by AP shows four people in military uniform leaving a war-damaged house, with one of the men seen with his hands raised. All four then lie face down on the ground and are shot dead by other soldiers.
Two drones — one Ukrainian and one Russian — captured the shooting, AP wrote, adding that it had obtained the Ukrainian drone footage from European military officials.
Footage from the other drone appeared on Russian pro-war channels on the day of the shooting itself. In contrast to the AFU drone footage published by AP, the Russian video breaks off at the moment when the servicemen lie down on the ground, with one pro-war channel claiming the Ukrainians had decided to surrender to avoid getting killed.
The Russian authorities have not commented on the footage.
