Ukraine says five soldiers trying to surrender executed by Russian military

The Russian military has shot dead five Ukrainian soldiers who were trying to surrender, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) reported on Sunday.

The black-and-white drone footage published on the Telegram channel of the AFU’s 110th Mechanised Brigade appears to show Russian soldiers surrounding a house where Ukrainian servicemen were holed up. The brigade asserts its men were divided into two groups and shot after they came out of the house and tried to surrender.

It is unclear when and where the footage was shot. Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said he would report the incident to both the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations.

There has been no comment from the Russian military on the alleged incident.

An anonymous source from Ukrainian intelligence told news outlet RBC Ukraine on Thursday that Russian soldiers had executed two Ukrainian servicemen after they surrendered on 17 December. He said the Russian servicemen came from the 27th Motorised Rifle Brigade, though this information cannot be verified.

In an interview with independent news outlet Ukrainska Pravda earlier this month, Lubinets said the Ukrainian authorities had proof that 109 AFU soldiers had been executed by the Russian military this year, representing well over half of the 177 servicemen who had met the same fate since the start of the war.