NY Times Takes Rare Look At Apparent Ukrainian War Crimes

The New York Times has in an extremely rare moment (or perhaps more like unprecedented) conducted an in-depth visual investigation of a likely war crime against surrendered Russian troops conducted by Ukrainian forces. Multiple videos from different angles, including drone footage, emerged last week showing the incredibly disturbing scenes as Ukrainian forces were recapturing the village of Makiivka in the Luhansk region.

The videos show ten apparently unarmed Russian soldiers lying facedown on the ground, who early on are seen moving and in a position of surrender as at least four Ukrainian troops stand nearby outside of a house in a farmyard.

By the end of the footage, eleven Russians had been shot dead at close range, in what Russia says was a summary execution of people who at that point (based on their surrender) effectively become non-combatants based on accepted international laws of war.

The Russian Defense Ministry has said the videos confirm “deliberate and methodical murder” of its soldiers by the Ukrainian side, also with the Russian Foreign Ministry calling the act “merciless” and “shocking”.

Surprisingly, the videos were initially made public by Ukrainian news sources and soldiers themselves, and were shared widely on social media, as they purportedly showed the ‘heroism’ of Ukrainian soldiers as they clawed back territory in eastern Ukraine. v

But The New York Times described, “The videos show the grisly before-and-after scenes of the encounter earlier this month, in which at least 11 Russians, most of whom are seen lying on the ground, appear to have been shot dead at close range after one of their fellow fighters suddenly opened fire on Ukrainian soldiers standing nearby.”

The United Nations has called for a formal investigation into the videos, with a statement from the UN Human Rights Office quoted in Reuters saying, “We are aware of the videos, and we are looking into them.”

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