Unverified reports have been made by a Danish warrior who signed up to fight beside the Ukrainian military forces.
The warrior says Ukrainian soldiers have indeed been shooting Russian war prisoners.
The Evidence is Shaky
“I have known of one effective prisoner swap, and that’s it,” the Dane, who goes by the nickname Jonas.
He claims Ukrainian soldiers have executed Russian war prisoners during the conflict, continuing, “People are getting murdered.”
Jonas, a marksman, volunteered to fight with the Ukrainian military services and told government Danish network TV2 that he also shot Russian soldiers, but never any seized detainees.
He informed the BBC of an 18-year-old Russian POW who said he’d been employed as a computer programmer in Russia before the war, but did not want to get into Ukraine.
As per Jonas, the teenager was killed and buried the next day.
Had a phone conversation with @OlafScholz. We emphasized that all perpetrators of war crimes must be identified and punished. We also discussed anti-Russian sanctions, defense and financial support for Ukraine.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) April 10, 2022
Despite the fact TV2 stated they had no method of verifying whether the Danish volunteer’s statements were true, they highlighted previous claims of similar behavior by the Ukrainian military forces.
In April, the FB Page of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Command of Special Operations Forces hinted that surrendered Russian infantry might be executed, which would have been a war crime within itself.
“There are no more arrested Russian artillerymen henceforth.”
No pity, no ‘please don’t kill, I surrender’ will be tolerated, according to the message, which also warned that such Russians would be “brutally murdered like pigs.”
However, the comment was later changed to remove these remarks; it was accompanied by another picture showing what they claimed was a video of a seized Russian who “killed Ukrainian kids with jet fire system.”
They realized “the sheer terror of what was occurring and made a smart choice to give it up, falling under the Geneva Convention,” presumably to reassure worried westerners that inmates were not being “butchered,” despite their previous talking points.
A Different Story From the President
Days later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued his own message, telling Russian forces, “I offer the chance on account of the Ukrainian people.”
“You have a chance to live. We will handle you the way people are required to be handled if you surrender to our army, reasonably as people.”
North Korea has described Joe Biden as an "old man in his senility", in a characteristically colourful personal attack on the US president after he accused the Russian leader of war crimes in Ukraine.https://t.co/LRcjUidW2C
— News24 (@News24) April 10, 2022
Unverified films have surfaced, purporting to show the Ukrainian military shooting and murdering captured Russian soldiers, including the one released this week, purporting to show a Ukrainian officer gunning down a helpless Russian soldier near Kyiv.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, said he was aware of the video, but had not seen it. In just about any case, the Ukrainian military “follows the norms of combat.”
There may be isolated instances of these regulations being broken, and they will undoubtedly be investigated.”
