Matilda Bogner, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ukraine, said some videos of Russian and Ukrainian detainees being abused were being investigated, adding that “at first glance, it raises serious concerns.” “It’s important that they immediately stop this kind of video and any abuse that could happen,” he said, following a video that appeared to show Ukrainian soldiers shooting three Russian captives in the leg. The granular material, which is being investigated by Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in Kyiv, shows three detainees being brought in from a car. Then a man with a blue armband approaches them and says “Hello” before shooting everyone in the leg. The Ukrainian government has said it is taking the video “very seriously”, although there is no independent evidence that it is true. “If this proves to be true, this is completely unacceptable behavior,” said Oleksiy Arestovych, Zelenskiy’s adviser. One of the biggest supporters of the video was Maria Dubovikova, a political commentator at the Council on Foreign Relations of Russia. The BBC reports that the video of the shooting of Ukrainian soldiers took place at a dairy factory in Malaya Rohan ‘, southeast of Kharkov, which had recently retaken Ukrainian troops from Russian forces. The analysis of the weather conditions and the movements of the troops further suggests that the video could have been taken in the early hours of Saturday, March 26. The Tass news agency reported that Russian negotiators in Istanbul, where peace talks resumed on Tuesday after a two-week break, had raised the issue of prisoner abuse. Russia has also said it will “drastically reduce” military operations around the capital, Kyiv, and the northern city of Chernihiv to “boost mutual trust” in peace talks.
