Russian forces executed nine Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) in the Kursk region, according to reports, in acts of brutality that appear to be a new tactic for Moscow in the war it started.
Since the start of Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s invasion on February 24, 2022, prisoners have been used by both sides as bargaining chips, with large groups exchanged, including a major swap of 206 POWs last month.
But the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said there has been an increase in Russian forces killing Ukrainian POWs, with Russian commanders “condoning, encouraging, or directly ordering” the executions. Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.
The head of the Ukrainian Department for Combating Crimes in Conditions of Armed Conflict, Yuri Bilousov, said there was evidence that 80 percent of Russian executions of Ukrainian POWs on the battlefield has taken place this year.
Former Ukrainian prisoners of war return to meet their families on September 14 in the Chernihiv Region, Ukraine. Ukraine says there has been an increase in Russian troops executing POWs on the battlefield.
Vlada Liberova/Getty Images
Open-source intelligence OSINT project DeepState reported on October 13 that Ukrainian drone operators near the Kursk village of Zeleny Shlyakh unexpectedly encountered Russian forces and surrendered when they came under Russian fire.
Visual evidence suggested that the prisoners had been disarmed, lined, stripped and shot in what was condemned by the Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets as a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Viktor Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military veteran (2014-2015) and geopolitical analyst said Moscow became “more flexible” about prisoner swaps after Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk in which hundreds of Russian soldiers were captured, giving Kyiv leverage.
“But this is not a major reason of the increase in executions of Ukrainian POWs,” he told Newsweek. “The reason is to intimidate Ukraine more and to thwart Ukrainian mobilization.”
Ukraine’s parliament passed legislation in April to boost numbers in the military to fight Russia, with clauses that include obliging Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 to update their personal data with the military authorities, allowing draft offices to see more easily who can be called up in any given region.
“The brutal executions filmed and shared in social media are aimed at intimidating potential Ukrainian recruits and their families so they could avoid the draft,” Kovalenko said.
Military analyst from the Finland-based Black Bird Group, Emil Kastehelmi said that Russian forces have been more open about war crimes, such as in Kherson, where drones have hit civilians in incidents that sometimes have been captured on camera.
“It’s possible that there is some institutional incentive which encourages such actions, or then the Russians simply care less as the war progresses, and they don’t want to deal with POWs in difficult places,” Kastehelmi told Newsweek.
“The Russians also trust that nobody will actually persecute them, and many Russian civilians don’t condemn these actions either, so it’s socially and legally acceptable, which lowers the threshold for committing war crimes.”
Russian Telegram channels with large followings whose links to the Kremlin give them authority have not only justified, but celebrated, the executions of Ukrainian POWs.
They include RVvoenkor, which has 1.62 million followers, Dva Mayora with 1.17 million subscribers, Starshe Edy, which has 627,000 subscribers, and Zapisky Veterana, with 357,000.
The ISW said that the praise of executions is “reinforcing a cultural norm to justify and celebrate war crimes within the broader Russian ultranationalist community.”
In any case, the brutality offers no military objective, according to Gustav Gressel, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, who said it showed “the lack of discipline and professionalism of the Russian armed forces.”
It also showed “the brutalization and radicalization that not only the Russian military but also Russian society went through in this war.”
“It will make Ukrainian soldiers fight even harder, reserving the last bullet for themselves,” Gressel told Newsweek. “German orders to shoot commissars in WWII let a lot of Soviet units not surrendering even if the overall situation was hopeless for them.
“During the 2023 counteroffensive, Ukrainians faced some Russian units who would not surrender under any circumstances, because they were so much indoctrinated about ‘Bandera Nazis’ that they did not dare to.”
A returning Ukrainian prisoner of war in the Chernihiv Region, Ukraine, on September 14. Kyiv has reported spike in POWs being executed by Russian forces.
Vlada Liberova/Getty Images
As of Monday, there have been 102 known cases of executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war by the Russians, according to Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General.
Elina Beketova, democracy fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said these were not isolated incidents but a “deliberate” policy, citing that the prosecutor general revealed how a Russian officer is heard in an audio recording instructing his troops not to take any prisoners.
“This could also be a psychological operation by the Russian forces, aimed at demoralizing Ukrainian soldiers and instilling panic and fear among them and within Ukrainian society,” she told Newsweek.
“Additionally, Russian military forces are using Ukrainian prisoners of war as human shields to prevent drone attacks,” she added, citing evidence from a Russian prisoner of war, as reported by Ukrainian outlet Slidstvo-Info.
In May, a Ukrainian court convicted 15 Russian soldiers of war crimes in absentia two years after cramming a village into a school basement in Yahidne, north of Kyiv, deprived them of sustenance and used them as human shields. Seventeen civilians died.
Wayne Jordash, president of Global Rights Compliance, which is investigating Russian war crimes in Ukraine, told Newsweek that POWs are protected under international humanitarian law and Russia is obliged to guarantee their rights under the Geneva Conventions.
“Violations committed against Ukrainian POWs qualify as war crimes and must face prosecutions domestically in Ukraine and other countries based on the universal jurisdiction principle,” he said.
“Recurring brutalities against Ukrainian POWs have now become a clear pattern,” he said, adding that the cases “must trigger the attention of the International Criminal Court.”
