Ukraine’s military said on Saturday it was verifying the authenticity of videos that Moscow says prove that Kyiv executed several Russian soldiers who had surrendered.
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“Before launching an investigation, there must be a basis for it. We are in the process of establishing whether these videos are fake,” army spokesman Bogdan Senyk told AFP.
He added that these videos had been “given to specialists”, noting that the publication of fake videos had “intensified recently”.
Russia on Friday accused Ukraine of having “brutally” executed more than ten of its soldiers who had laid down their arms, denouncing a “war crime”.
“No one will be able to present the deliberate and methodical murder of more than ten Russian soldiers who were immobilized […]with direct shots in the head, as a + tragic exception +”, declared the Russian Ministry of Defense.
In the first video, taken with a mobile phone, we see a group of men in military fatigues coming out one after the other, hands in the air, from a building in the courtyard of a house, and lie face down on the ground, under the injunction of soldiers wearing yellow armbands who hold them at gunpoint.
At the moment when a last dark silhouette appears on the left, the video is abruptly interrupted at the same time as a burst sounds.
The second video, taken from a height, possibly with a drone, shows a dozen bodies lying in pools of blood.
One of the bodies appears to have been hit in the head.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not specify when these images were taken.
Asked by AFP, a UN spokesperson said: “We are aware of these videos and are reviewing them.” He stressed that, where appropriate, the culprits should be held accountable.
The Russian Investigative Committee said it had opened an investigation for “the execution of captured Russian soldiers”.
Moscow’s claims come after the UN released a report this week indicating that prisoners of war on both sides had been subjected to torture and ill-treatment.