Donetsk Prosecutor’s Office investigates the execution of five Ukrainian prisoners at the hands of Russian forces

MADRID 22 Nov. () –

The Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation this Friday into the possible execution of five Ukrainian prisoners of war in October at the hands of Russian forces in the city of Vuhledar, located in this region.

“On October 2, 2024, servicemen of the Russian Federation carried out an assault on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near the city of Vuhledar. During the offensive, the occupiers captured five unarmed Ukrainian defenders,” it reads the statement from the Prosecutor’s Office.

One of the soldiers was shot “in a forest area” while the rest were taken to a nearby road, where they were shot to death. For this reason, the authorities have opened an investigation for a possible war crime included in the Penal Code of Ukraine.

According to Ukrainian authorities, the increase in murders of Ukrainian defenders captured by Russian troops – more than 150 cases are being investigated – began at the end of last year and, since then, has been increasing to reach unprecedented levels this year. same year.

Russian forces have intensified their offensives in eastern Ukraine in recent months, making significant gains in Donetsk and leading some senior Ukrainian military commanders to talk of a “collapse” of the eastern front in the face of military pressure from Moscow already. despite the incursion launched in August in the Russian province of Kursk.

Donetsk, along with Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhia, all of them partially occupied within the framework of the invasion, were annexed in October 2022 by Russia, a measure not recognized by the international community that was added to the annexation in 2014 of the Crimean peninsula by Moscow.