The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Ukrainian Parliament, Dmytro Lubinets, commented on an incident in eastern Luhansk on Sunday, saying that the Russian military “are the ones who fight and commit treason” and that “returning fire is not a crime of war”.
Russia has accused Ukraine of war crimes after the video surfaced on social media, which Moscow says shows Russian soldiers killed after surrendering to Ukrainian forces.
The precise details of what happened are still unclear.
“From some videos about the incident with the Russian army in the Luhansk region, it can be concluded that with the staged surrender, the Russians committed a war crime: they opened fire on the servicemen of the Armed Forces of “Ukraine,” Lubinets said in a Telegram post on Sunday, implying that the Russians in the video may have acted like they were surrendering, but they weren’t.
“In this case, people among the Russian military cannot be considered prisoners of war, but those who are fighting and committing treason,” he said. “Returning fire is not a war crime. On the contrary, those who want to use the protection of international law to kill must be punished.”
What the video appears to show: The edited video purports to show captured Russian soldiers in an act of surrender, with several men lying on the ground in front with their hands over their heads. More soldiers are seen coming out one by one from a building and lying next to him in the courtyard.
A voice apparently directing the surrender can be heard shouting: “Come on, one by one. Which one of you is the officer? Is everyone out? To go out!”
After about 10 men on the ground, another soldier emerges from the same building and appears to open fire in the direction of the surrendering Ukrainian soldiers.
A small burst of gunfire is heard before the video clip ends abruptly.
A second clip shot later from a drone over the same location shows the bodies of what appear to be the same Russian soldiers in the courtyard, most of them just meters from where they had been laid in the first clip.
CNN has not been able to verify exactly what happened in the first video clip, and it is unclear what exactly happened in the period between the first clip and the filming of the drone footage.
UN investigates: Marta Hurtado, spokeswoman for the UN human rights office, said, according to Reuters: “We are aware of the videos and are investigating them. Allegations of summary executions of non-combatants should be timely, thoroughly and effectively investigated, and perpetrators held accountable.”
More context: A UN panel of experts said in September that its investigation had found evidence that war crimes had been committed during Russia’s war in Ukraine, including cases of child rape and torture.