HRW urges Ukraine to probe 'war crimes'
Ukraine has been found to be involved in several war crimes since the start of the war there, and this time a humanitarian organization is calling for the launching of an investigation into these crimes.
-
Screenshots from a video uploaded on Telegram featuring the Ukrainian military shooting Russian prisoners of war
Human Rights Watch has called on Kiev to investigate "possible" war crimes after footage emerged of Ukrainian soldiers shooting Russian prisoners of war in the legs.
The video began circulating around March 27, and it showed three men in fatigues with their hands tied behind their backs. They were thrown to the ground by Ukrainian soldiers who proceeded to shoot them in the legs.
AFP reported that they were able to geolocalise the footage to the village of Mala Rogan outside Kharkov, recently seized by Kiev's forces. Correspondents made it to the village on March 28 and saw the bodies of two Russian soldiers on its streets with shopping bags on their heads.
"If confirmed, the beating and shooting of captured combatants in their legs would constitute a war crime," a Human Rights Watch statement read late Thursday.
"Ukraine needs to demonstrate that it is able and willing to prevent and punish serious violations of international humanitarian law," it added.
It is noteworthy that the Ukrainian armed forces have a lot of neo-Nazis and extremists among their ranks, with Russia declaring the "denazification" of Ukraine among one of the reasons for the war.
Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovich acknowledged on Telegram that abusing prisoners constituted a war crime and should be punished.
"We treat prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Convention despite your personal emotional motivations," he claimed before Ukrainian soldiers.
The head of Russia's main criminal investigative force has also ordered a probe into the incident.
Speaking on Ukrainian war crimes, the country was found to have been, in collaboration with the United States, building bio labs, with Washington itself admitting to the act.
Data on biological laboratories found in Ukraine does not help the case of the US against claims regarding its compliance with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at the time of the discovery.
