The UN has accused both Russia and Ukraine of arbitrary executions of prisoners of war without trial. The United Nations is “deeply concerned” about these executions, Matilda Bogner, head of the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, said at a press conference in Kiev on Friday.
According to Bogner, both sides in the Ukraine war executed prisoners without trial or charge. “We are deeply concerned about the executions of up to 25 Russian prisoners of war and incapacitated persons by Ukrainian forces that we have documented,” the UN official said. The people were executed “immediately after their arrest on the battlefield”.
The UN is also “deeply concerned” by “the summary execution of 15 Ukrainian prisoners of war shortly after their capture by Russian forces,” Bogner continued. Eleven of these people were killed by the Russian mercenary group Wagner. In a UN report published on Friday, former Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war also describe severe torture and abuse by the other warring party.
Ukrainian prisoners of war report, among other things, about beatings with shovels, electric shocks, mock executions, sexual violence, the refusal of food and drinking water as well as urgently needed medical help in Russian detention. “They not only beat us, they broke us,” it says in these descriptions.
According to the UN report, Russian prisoners of war, for their part, report being beaten in “pure retaliation” for alleged Russian war crimes in Bucha, electric shocks and threats of killing or sexual violence by the Ukrainian forces. “Before the interrogation, you showed me a bloody ax as a warning,” a Russian prisoner of war was quoted as saying. (AFP)
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