Videos suggest execution of Russian soldiers at close range in Ukraine

A series of videos that circulated on social media last week sparked an argument over whether Ukrainian forces committed war crimes or acted in self-defense when they tried to capture a group of Russian soldiers and then killed them.

The videos show brutal before-and-after footage of a clash this month in which at least 11 Russians, seen mostly lying on the ground, appear to have been executed at point-blank range after one of their fellow fighters suddenly opened fire on soldiers. Ukrainians who were nearby.

The videos, whose authenticity has been confirmed by the New York Times, offer a rare glimpse of one violent moment among many others in the war, but do not reveal how or why the Russian soldiers were killed. Ultimately, they leave a mystery that both sides in the war have been using to win people over online.

The videos were initially circulated by Ukrainian journalism and social media channels, which used them to praise the military exploits of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and publicize their heroic retake of territories lost to Russia at the start of the war. In Russia, however, the videos provoked an angry reaction from hardline pro-war commentators, who called on the government to request an international investigation.

Warning: The following video contains graphic imagery.

Now Moscow and Kiev accuse each other of committing war crimes in the same incident. The Russians accuse Ukrainian forces of having “mercilessly shot unarmed Russian POWs”, while Ukraine’s human rights commissioner Dmitro Lubinets said Russian soldiers opened fire as they were surrendering.

Since Moscow ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine at the end of February, both Russian and Ukrainian forces have been accused of war crimes, even though the number and scale of reported Russian crimes far outweigh those of the which Ukraine is accused of.

The United Nations said the episode needed to be investigated.

“We are aware of the videos and are investigating them,” a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Marta Hurtado, told Reuters on Friday. “Allegations of summary executions of ‘hors de combat’ persons must be investigated promptly, thoroughly and effectively, and any perpetrators must be held accountable.” The French term “hors de combat”, when used in international law, refers to persons who are “out of combat” because they have surrendered, are unarmed, unconscious or otherwise unable to defend themselves.

The deaths occurred in mid-November, when the Ukrainian army recaptured the village of Makiivka in the Lugansk region, inflicting heavy casualties on Russian forces. Comparing the videos with satellite images, the New York Times confirmed that the videos were recorded in a rural house in the village. Some of them are part of a series of four videos filmed by drones that were circulated on November 12 by a pro-Ukraine Telegram channel that reported the retaking of Makiivka. The American newspaper verified that the other aerial videos were also recently filmed in the village.

Warning: The following video contains graphic imagery.

The shock was recorded by two sources: an unidentified Ukrainian soldier, who was filming diaries of the fight for Makiivka, and drone footage, presumably by Ukrainian forces who followed the offensive from a distance. By verifying that the videos were captured in the same location and analyzing what they show, the NYT was able to trace the sequence of what happened.

The first video has musical accompaniment — a common element in video diaries posted on social media — and shows a group of armed Ukrainian soldiers lying in a field, firing at a target in the distance. Soldiers sound like Ukrainians. They speak Ukrainian and Russian. Shots are heard, and the person filming shows his face.

The second video features an aerial view of the same group of Ukrainian soldiers inside the backyard of a farmhouse. The residence and surrounding buildings are heavily damaged by the fighting, as with many other buildings in the area.

The video shows a Ukrainian soldier lying face down on the ground, pointing a machine gun at one of the sheds in the compound. A second Ukrainian soldier is standing behind him. A third Ukrainian serviceman paces the yard holding a rifle, and a fourth is on the ground checking out a body that appears to be a dead Russian soldier. A second body, also apparently Russian, is lying nearby, motionless.

Other Russian soldiers are hiding inside one of the sheds, but we still don’t see them.

The next scene is a video shot by the same Ukrainian soldier in the backyard, with a cell phone. There are gaps in the video, but it’s not clear why. The video shows the four Ukrainian soldiers, at least three of whom are armed.

A soldier, rifle in hand, cautiously approaches the structure where the Russian soldiers are hiding. The soldier with the machine gun gives you cover. Several shots are heard — though it’s not clear where they’re coming from — and the soldier slowly backs out of the shed, luring the Russians out at gunpoint.

The video is cut. When it resumes, six Russian soldiers are lying face down on the ground, side by side. At least two of them are alive, seen moving in the video; the others are motionless. The video shows four other soldiers slowly exiting the shed, one behind the other, some with their arms in the air. They will join the other soldiers on the ground.

Russians wear helmets and bulletproof vests. Their uniforms have characteristic markings: red strips on the shins and one with a square blue object on the back.

Two of the Ukrainians appear to be relaxed, their rifles pointed at the ground. At first, the capture of these soldiers proceeds in an orderly manner and without incident – ​​but suddenly everything changes.

When an 11th Russian soldier emerges from the shed, he opens fire, aiming at one of the Ukrainian soldiers. Ukrainians are taken by surprise. The cell phone camera suddenly pulls away as the Ukrainian soldier filming the scene backs away. A frame-by-frame analysis of what happens next shows the Ukrainian soldier next to him raising his rifle and pointing it at the Russian sniper.

Warning: The following video contains graphic imagery.

The video ends, and it’s unclear what happens next. But a second aerial video of the scene shows a bloody scene.

Russian soldiers are lying motionless, apparently dead, most in the same position they were in when they surrendered. Blood pools around them, and some appear to be bleeding from the head or upper body. The soldiers wear the same uniforms with the red stripes and blue mark.

The Russian soldier who shot the Ukrainians appears to have been shot down where he was and appears lying in the position from which he opened fire. The white masonry wall he was standing next to bears recent damage, possibly caused by gunfire from the Ukrainians.

“It looks like most were shot in the head,” Rohini Haar, a medical adviser for the NGO Physicians for Human Rights, said in an interview. “There are pools of blood. This indicates that they were left there, dead. It appears that no effort was made to lift or rescue them.”

Iva Vukusic, an expert in war crimes prosecution at Utrecht University, said it was difficult to determine based on the videos alone whether a war crime was committed or not. For her, the critical factor is time – when the Russians were shot.

“Was it one or two bursts of bullets just as the last Russian comes out and shoots the Ukrainians or immediately after that?” Vukusic said. “Or was it after the immediate threat had been neutralized, as an act of revenge? In that case what happened would more clearly have been a war crime.”

According to Vukusic, if the Russians were shot in the heat of the moment, it is not an unambiguous crime. “If these POWs had not yet been searched, then the Ukrainians did not know if they were armed, even though they were on the ground.”

The Russian gunman’s actions are also crucial, Vukusic said, and could be characterized as treachery – pretending to surrender or to be non-combatants, as a ploy against Ukrainians, which could lead to prosecution for war crimes under the Convention of Geneva.

“It’s very possible that if that man hadn’t fired, they would all have been captured as prisoners of war and survived,” Vukusic said.

Makiivka’s videos provoked enormous outrage among pro-war Russian commentators. Activist and blogger Vladlen Tatarski said in a post on the Telegram app that every Russian “needs to watch this several times to understand who we are fighting” and that “not a single Russian can live and sleep in peace” as long as the perpetrators remain alive.

Russia’s human rights council said it would send the video to international organizations. The country’s investigative committee, the Russian equivalent of the FBI, has opened a criminal investigation into the confrontation.