Listen to the article
Russian forces under the direct orders of President Vladimir Putin are executing prisoners of war as they intensify attacks during peace negotiations, one of Ukraine’s most decorated soldiers has said.
Major Oleh Shyriaiev, who was granted the highest national decoration of Hero of Ukraine for his leadership on the battlefield, said that he regularly intercepted transmissions in which Russian military leaders gave orders to kill surrendering servicemen.
Evidence of the war crimes has become overwhelming in recent months, according to combat observers.
Footage filmed by Russian soldiers or Ukrainian reconnaissance drones shows troops being lined up and shot with automatic gunfire after surrendering.
One video, recorded by a drone on November 19 near Pokrovsk, allegedly showed a soldier with a machine gun shooting four unarmed men lying face down, before he aimed at another man who was trying to drag himself away.
Ukrainian prosecutors are also investigating cases of beheadings and one instance of a Ukrainian soldier being killed with a sword while his hands were tied behind his back.
Speaking from an undisclosed location near the front line, Shyriaiev said that Russia has been throwing hundreds of thousands of men “into the grinder” to make small gains while peace talks between the US, European and Russian leaders continue.
“The ratio of [Russian] losses is ten to one, sometimes more than that,” Shyriaiev said told The Time, as Ukrainian forces wipe out entire Russian battalions with drones and artillery.
Shyriaiev, who commands the Ukrainian 225th Separate Assault Battalion, added: “Russians are trying to push forward so that in the peace negotiations they can push this narrative that they are achieving successes.”
He accused President Putin of ordering troops to stop taking prisoners of war in an attempt to crush Ukrainian morale.
“The number of executions is growing and this is happening in all directions of the front line,” he said. “For Russians, there are no red lines.”
Shyriaiev added: “In the wiretaps and radio communication that we intercept, we routinely hear their military leadership giving orders to execute our servicemen who are trying to surrender.
“This practice has become a systematic one, I would say, in the last year and a half. They are demonstrating to the whole civilised world that they can do things with impunity.
“But also they are showing that they do not respect the rules of warfare and any international conventions that have been signed by countries.”
The Ukrainian prosecution service has corroborated the commander’s observations, stating that at least 147 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been executed by Russian forces since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, 127 of them this year.
Yuri Belousov, the head of the war crimes department at the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office, said: “The upward trend is very clear, very obvious. Sadly, their number has been particularly on the rise this summer and autumn. This tells us that they are not isolated cases. They are happening across vast areas and they have clear signs of being part of a policy.”
United Nations observers have also documented increasing instances of Russian war crimes since mid-November, according to Danielle Bell, the head of the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine.
International humanitarian law, particularly the Third Geneva Convention, offers protection to prisoners of war and states that executing them is a war crime.
Ukrainian forces have been increasing reconnaissance missions and transmission interceptions to avoid scenarios where troops would fall into Russian hands.
Putin has previously insisted that Russian forces have “always” treated Ukrainian prisoners of war “strictly in line with international legal documents and international conventions”.
Ukrainian forces have also been accused of executing Russian prisoners of war, but the number of such claims has been far smaller.
Shyriaiev, who was recently granted the Order of the Gold Star by Zelensky, the country’s highest military award, stressed: “Unlike Russians we do not use these inhuman methods. When we take Russians into captivity we treat them in accordance with international law.”
Both Kyiv and Moscow have indicated that there has been progress in talks to end the war.
Zelensky said on Friday that there were still “very difficult” issues on territory that Ukraine needed to negotiate with Russia, but added that he was willing to put controversial points to a referendum if the Kremlin agreed to a 60-day ceasefire.
Following a meeting with Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Sunday, President Trump said territory remained a “thorny issue” but he and the Ukrainian leader were “a lot closer” to reaching a deal.
Moscow has demanded that Ukraine surrenders tracts of land, agrees to a ban on joining Nato and accepts limits on the size of its armed forces before there can be any peace.
A US official said that the Russians understood the need for a ceasefire if Zelensky called a referendum, but would want a shorter one.
Zelensky’s 20-point proposal for a peace deal was “90 per cent” done, he said in a post on X, adding: “We are not losing a single day. We have agreed on a meeting at the highest level — with President Trump in the near future. A lot can be decided before the new year.”
Shyriaiev praised his soldiers and said they were prepared to continue holding off the Russian invasion over Christmas, but warned: “If Ukraine doesn’t hold its ground, they are going to go further. The next stage will be Europe, Finland, the Baltic countries, Poland.”