Advisor to the Presidentʼs Office, Oleksiy Arestovych, for the first time commented on the video with the alleged "shooting of Russian prisoners of war" by the soldiers of the Armed Forces, which was made public on November 18.
"If you decide to surrender and then suddenly grab your weapon, you are not a hero, but committing a war crime in violation of the Geneva Convention. The same applies to other provocations — imitation of surrender or similar things that expose the enemy to fire," Arestovych said.
According to Arestovych, according to international law, if a person who surrenders to captivity behaves aggressively, he loses the rights of a prisoner of war. Therefore, this incident cannot be considered the shooting of prisoners of war, and the soldiers of the Armed Forces did not commit a war crime.
He noted that Ukraine is conducting an official investigation into this video recording.
What happened?
On November 13, a video from the village of Makiivka, Luhansk region, appeared on social networks. On it, footage of Russians killed in one of the villageʼs courtyards was taken. It is not known what exactly happened to them, but pro-Russian Telegram channels have already started saying that the Ukrainian military allegedly shot the prisoners.
Later, on November 18, a video appeared directly from the scene. It shows the Russian occupiers leaving the building and lying down, presumably surrendering to the Ukrainians. Then one of them opens fire on the Ukrainian military while leaving the building, and the video cuts off.
The Russian Ombudsman Tetiana Moskalkova and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation said that she turned to international organizations with the demand to condemn the "shooting of Russian prisoners" to conduct an investigation and punish the guilty.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, in turn, wrote about the "vivacious essence of the current Kyiv regime headed by Zelensky."