The governments of Ukraine, the United States, and the UK have consistently charged Russian forces with violating Convention IV of the body of international law called the Geneva Conventions. Convention IV afforded to civilians in war, and to the remains of persons killed in war, the protections Conventions I-III had afforded to sick, wounded, and captive POWs. Only the Russian media and a few contrarians in the West, however, have reported the constant violations of Conventions I-III by the Banderite heroes of Ukraine’s armed forces, who have photographed, paraded, publicly taunted, and humiliated Russian prisoners of war, including distributing videos of their interrogations, since the conflict began. Now they have gone further.
In a video whose events have given pause even to the founder of the British intelligence Operation Bellingcat, Russian POWs who are captive and bound, are shown lying on the ground with terrible leg and groin area wounds. The final seconds show how they got those wounds, as three other POWs are taken out of a van and immediately shot in the legs by their “hero” captors. RT reported March 18 that some reports indicate these events took place “at a military compound located in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkov, which is used by ‘nationalist’ units.” A Russian investigative committee headed by Alexander Bastrykin has ordered “investigators to establish all the circumstances of the incident, collect and record evidence and identify all the persons involved in it….”
Eliot Higgins, founder of the explicitly anti-Russian “investigative journalism” unit Bellingcat, described the torture shown in the video as “a very serious incident” and called for it to be further investigated, according to RT.
RT declined to link the “extremely graphic” video. It says “some of the wounded personnel apparently died during the interrogation,” as is completely believable from watching it. Former Virginia State Senator and Army Col. (Ret.) Richard Black has circulated the video, and references to others, and said, “These reports show Ukrainians brutalizing casualties intentionally. These are unquestionably war crimes under the Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs. And the perpetrators deserve to be hanged. I’m disgusted by American involvement in this war. Our role should be limited to helping Ukrainian refugees and seeking a negotiated peace that keeps Ukraine out of NATO and de-militarizes the country in exchange for Russian troop withdrawals.”
The United States has signed and ratified all four Geneva Conventions.
