Russians execute 177 Ukrainian POWs since war-start – Lubinets
During nearly three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as many as 177 confirmed cases of executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) have been documented, 109 of which occurred in 2024.
This was stated by Ukraine’s Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda, Ukrinform reports.
"As of now (the interview was recorded on December 13 – UP), 177 executions of Ukrainian POWs have been confirmed. This covers all three years of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine. However, we can compare: in 2024 alone, 109 executions of Ukrainian POWs were officially confirmed. We see that the situation has drastically worsened," said Lubinets.
He explained that in previous years, most information about such cases came from intelligence and law enforcement agencies and was often difficult to confirm. However, in 2024, many incidents were recorded on video.
"Not all cases are officially documented. Often, I receive information that cannot be verified, but all the evidence suggests that such events occurred," Lubinets noted.
He added that the executions of Ukrainian soldiers, which Russians sometimes post on social media, may serve to tie their soldiers to these crimes, making them less likely to surrender to Ukrainian forces.
Such actions by the Russian army also send a grim message to the international community.
"They want to show the democratic world: 'We do this, and you can't do anything about it. There will be no punishment for us,'" Lubinets stated.
He pointed out that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has never publicly or privately accused Russians of killing or torturing Ukrainian POWs.
At the same time, 2024 marked the first year when official UN reports explicitly acknowledged that Russians execute Ukrainian POWs. This was highlighted not only in reports by the UN's regular monitoring mission but also in a separate report by Alice Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, which documented that 95% of Ukrainian POWs in Russian captivity are subjected to systematic torture.
As Ukrinform previously reported, according to Dmytro Lubinets, at least 165 civilians were killed, and 887 were injured in Ukraine in November, including eight children killed and 57 wounded.