KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s Airborne Assault Troops said on Thursday that three servicemen who Ukrainian prosecutors have said were captured and shot dead by Russian forces this month were members of the 82nd Airborne Assault Brigade.
Russia has yet to comment on the allegation, the second accusation that it has killed prisoners of war leveled against it this month by Ukrainian prosecutors.
Footage shared on social media of the alleged incident appears to show three unarmed figures collapsing from a stationary position after being fired upon. Reuters could not independently verify the video.
The Airborne Assault Troops said unidentified enemy personnel, “acting intentionally, in violation of the laws and customs of war,” had deliberately killed the three men, whom it described as captured members of its 82nd Airborne Assault Brigade.
It said their bodies had been removed by Ukrainian authorities from the scene, previously identified as being near the village of Robotyne in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region.
The Airborne Assault Troops reshared the footage of the incident, marking three men with Ukrainian flags and placing Russian flags next to uniformed figures standing or crouching at two locations on a barren landscape some distance behind the three.
The three men are seen on their knees, hands behind their heads. At least two uniformed individuals raise what appear to be weapons from the two Russian-flagged locations and appear to open fire in the direction of the Ukrainians.
Immediately the three tumble forwards, and a man identified as a Russian soldier approaches them and appears to check for signs of life as they lie on the earth.
“This is another case of a gross violation by the aggressor country of international humanitarian law regarding the treatment of prisoners of war,” the prosecutor’s office said when it announced its investigation on Wednesday.
Ukraine on Dec. 3 accused Russia of committing a war crime after another video shared on social media appeared to show several soldiers shooting two surrendering military personnel who emerged from a dugout at gunpoint.
Last March, a captured Ukrainian soldier was seen being shot dead in a video after defiantly saying “Glory to Ukraine,” a phrase that has taken on special significance as a common public greeting since the start of the war.
(Reporting by Oleksandr Kozhukhar in Kyiv and Elaine Monaghan in Washington; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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