Russian War Crimes: Ukraine claims Russian forces have executed over one hundred POWs

In November 2024, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office revealed a staggeringly high number of prisoners of war the Russian Armed Forces have executed since the Kremlin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

Russian forces have been accused of countless war crimes since invading Ukraine, but one of the worst has been their record on executing Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) on the battlefield. 

“Reports of murders, torture, and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war are received regularly by Ukrainian authorities and have spiked in recent months,” reported The Kyiv Independent. “Most cases were recorded in embattled Donetsk Oblast.”

On November 6th, while speaking during a nationally televised interview, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General, Denys Lysenko, Russian forces have executed at least 124 POWs on the battlefield since the conflict began. 

The news came on the heels of a report revealing that on November 5th, six Ukrainian prisoners of war captured on the battlefield were executed by a group of Russian troops near Pokrovsk in Donetsk. 

Lysenko revealed in his interview that 49 criminal cases were open regarding the killing of Ukrainian POWs. "We are now analyzing all these cases, looking for patterns,” stated the Ukrainian Prosecutor General according to United24. 

“We are building cases against senior Russian military officials who may be involved in organizing such crimes or failing to take measures to stop them and punish those responsible,” Lysenko added. 

“We are looking at these cases comprehensively, and the participation of individual military units is analyzed in each case. However, this does not absolve commanders of responsibility,” Lysenko conditioned. 

United24 reported that the execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war has significantly risen over the last year of the war. They have now reached “unprecedented levels” according to the Ukrainian state-run charitable platform. 

Lysenko revealed other recent execution cases, reporting that 3 Ukrainian POWs were killed on November 1st near the village of Vyshneve in the Selydov, and 3 others were executed in the eastern part of the city of Selydove on October 23rd.

The Kyiv Independent noted that roughly 80% of POWs executed since the invasion of Ukraine began in 2024, but added the trend of increasing executions on the battlefield was already growing near the end of 2023.

Senior representative of the Prosecutor General's Office Yurii Belousov previously stated that in November 2023 "there were changes in the attitude of Russian military personnel towards our prisoners of war for the worse.”

Claims of Russian executions of POWs have continued to be made since Ukriane's Prosecutor general made his initial remarks in early November. However, the total number of Ukrainian POWs killed by Russian soldiers is currently unknown.

According to a representative from Ukraine's Coordination Center for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 1at least 77 POWs have died in captivity in Russia, The Kyiv Independent reported.