The Institute for the Study of War highlighted this escalating pattern following a CNN report from 6 September 2024. CNN obtained exclusive footage showing Russian troops executing surrendering Ukrainian soldiers near Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast, in late August 2024 and in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in May 2024.

Given that numerous similar cases of executions have been committed by multiple Russian units across different sectors of the front, with some even sharing video evidence, this trend appears to be widespread and, at a minimum, tolerated, if not explicitly endorsed, by Russian military leadership.

Ukrainian defense intelligence provided CNN with transcripts of audio intercepts from the May incident, revealing a Russian commander explicitly ordering his subordinates to kill surrendering Ukrainian soldiers. This evidence suggests that such actions may be endorsed by Russian military leadership.

The scale of these incidents is alarming. Ukrainian defense intelligence sources reported at least 15 cases of such executions since November 2023, most supported by drone footage or audio intercepts. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Andriy Kostin, stated that his office has investigated at least 28 such executions since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Kostin emphasized that these crimes have been committed by different Russian units across various sectors of the front, leading Ukrainian authorities to assert that this could amount to a systematic policy of crimes against humanity.

A United Nations investigative source, speaking to CNN, suggested that the pattern of these executions indicates “complacency, if not orders to give no quarter” from Russian leadership.

The ISW report emphasizes that attacking soldiers who are hors de combat, particularly those who have clearly expressed an intention to surrender, is a violation of Article 41 of the Geneva Convention on the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflict. This trend of executing surrendering soldiers appears to be part of a broader pattern of Russian abuses against Ukrainian prisoners of war, which the ISW has previously reported on.

Related:

• Starvation, beatings, nails ripped out: Russia systematically tortures Ukrainian POWs till death 
• This winter, 32 Ukrainian POWs were executed by Russian forces, UN report reveals
• “Welcome to hell”: UN report exposes Russia’s systematic torture, killings, and crimes against humanity in Ukraine
• “Russians tortured us so badly we thought we wouldn’t make it out alive,” civilian survivors say