Russians deliberately shoot prisoners, knowing drones are recording everything - New York Times
Ukrainian soldiers are recording the executions of their comrades almost live with drones filming the events from the battlefield. According to them, the drone footage leaves no doubt that the executions are systematic.
As Censor.NET informs, The New York Times writes about it.
One such video, filmed last fall, shows Russian soldiers shooting two Ukrainians at point blank range near the village of Novoivanivka in the Kursk region. The drone was recording everything live.
A 26-year-old pilot with the call sign "One Two" who serves in the 15th Mobile Border Guard Detachment said:
"There were no polite words between us - we were full of rage and a strong desire for revenge."
As the United States tilts toward a ceasefire and considers reconsidering its support for Ukraine, a growing number of Ukrainians fear that Russia's war crimes may go unpunished. President Trump has already stated that he is seeking to mend relations with Russia and cut aid to Ukraine.
In recent months, Ukrainian and international human rights activists have accused Russian forces of executing Ukrainian soldiers instead of taking them prisoner, as required by the Geneva Conventions, which define how countries should treat enemy forces and civilians during armed conflict.
A recent UN report condemned an "alarming surge" in executions of Ukrainian prisoners in Russia. In December, Ukraine's human rights ombudsman's office reported that 177 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been executed on the battlefield since the beginning of the war; 109 of them died in 2024. Since then, the Russians have killed at least 25 more Ukrainian soldiers, according to Artem Staroshek, who runs the Ukrainian
consulting company Molfar.
Five Ukrainian drone pilots said in interviews that they saw their fellow soldiers surrendering in drone videos, only to be killed. Such videos have become commonplace on Telegram. While Russian officials deny committing war crimes in Ukraine, some Russian soldiers appear to be so unconcerned about potential repercussions that they have posted their own videos of killing unarmed Ukrainians.
Live execution and revenge for it
According to Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office, footage shows 16 men lined up and shot dead on September 30, after surrendering near the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. Nine Ukrainian drone operators were forced to strip and lie face down on the ground in Kursk before being shot dead on October 10 - footage so clear that the mother of one man later identified him.
Some perpetrators shoot videos themselves, such as one posted in January that circulated widely on social media and appeared to show the executions of six Ukrainian soldiers near Donetsk, the Prosecutor General's Office said. "One is mine," one of the Russians said in the video. "Film me, damn it," another added. The video ended with the seventh Ukrainian on the ground, his fate unclear.
Since late August, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has documented 29 clashes in which Russian soldiers killed at least 91 incapacitated Ukrainian soldiers, including the episode witnessed by Odnokomplekt.
Human rights monitors analyzed videos and photographs published by Ukrainian and Russian sources showing executions and corpses, interviewed witnesses and confirmed that the reported executions took place in the vicinity of Russian offensives, said Danielle Bell, head of the mission. "This is horrific. And these are just the cases that we have assessed as credible and reliable," she said.
After seeing the dead Ukrainian soldiers on the morning of November 11, Odin Dva said the commanders wanted the drone pilots to strike back. The operators of the three units met via video link. One Ukrainian drone tracked five Russians - two who were shooting at the Ukrainians and three who were standing nearby - and provided a live feed of their movements into the forest. Ten more drones followed, surrounding the five Russians. And then, according to One Two, the drone pilots fired their weapons and killed them.
