Russia’s Defense Ministry on Friday accused Ukrainian servicemen of the execution of at least a dozen prisoners of war captured in footage it denounced as «methodical and intentional murder.»
Although the Ministry’s statement does not provide details at the moment about the executions, its publication coincides with a complaint also made Friday by pro-Russian authorities in the Donetsk region about a possible massacre of Russian servicemen in the town of Makivka, just east of the capital.
The Defense Ministry merely reports the number of executed and notes «new video evidence of mass executions inflicted by Ukrainian servicemen on unarmed Russian prisoners of war confirms the atrocious nature of the Kiev regime».
«No one will be able to say anymore that this methodical and intentional murder committed by the degenerates of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who have killed ten immobilized Russian servicemen with ten direct shots to the head, is a ‘tragic exception’,» the Ministry adds in the note, published on its Telegram channel.
For their part, the pro-Russian authorities in Donetsk have announced their intention to hand over the captured images of these possible executions to the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Amnesty International for verification.
«It is difficult to comment on the video of the execution of the surrendered soldiers in the settlement of Makivka without going beyond the normative vocabulary,» denounced the ombudsman of the Russian administration in Donetsk, Daria Morozova, in comments picked up by the Russian agency TASS.
«I expect an objective investigation and, if the authenticity of the footage is confirmed, we demand an adequate response from the international human rights community to the heinous war crime committed by representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,» she added.
