A senior UN official said he had seen videos allegedly showing the mistreatment of prisoners of war on both sides in Ukraine as Russia brought up the mistreatment of its soldiers on the first day of recent peace talks.
Matilda Bogner, head of the UN human rights office in Ukraine, said a number of videos of the mistreatment of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners were being investigated, adding that “at first glance it raises serious concerns”.
“It is important that this type of video and any possible abuse is stopped immediately,” she said after broadcasting footage that appeared to show Ukrainian soldiers shooting three captured Russians in the legs.
Three prisoners are seen being brought in from a car in grainy footage being examined by Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in Kyiv. Then a man with a blue armband comes up to them and says, “Hello,” before shooting each of them in the leg.
The Ukrainian government said it takes the footage “very seriously”, although there is no independent evidence of its veracity yet.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskyi, said: “If this turns out to be true, this is absolutely unacceptable behavior.”
One of the video’s biggest supporters was Maria Dubovikova, a political commentator at the Russian International Affairs Council.
The BBC reported that footage of Ukrainian soldiers shot dead was taken at a dairy in Malaya Rohan, south-east of Kharkiv, which had recently been recaptured by Ukrainian troops from Russian forces.
Analysis of weather conditions and troop movements also indicated that the video may have been shot in the early hours of March 26.
Tass news agency reported that Russian negotiators in Istanbul, where peace talks resumed on Tuesday after a two-week hiatus, addressed the mistreatment of prisoners of war.
Russia also announced that it would “drastically reduce” military combat operations around the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv to boost “mutual trust” in peace talks.