'Film me!’: Russia's executions of Ukrainian POWs point to a policy | FT Film

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Captured Ukrainian soldiers, forced to kneel, then shot in the back.

Through the fog of Russia's war on Ukraine this type of crime has become more and more visible - the execution of prisoners of war.

Ukrainian prosecutors now believe Russia is executing POWs as part of a deliberate and systematic policy. We are going to try to find out what can be done to document these war crimes, and to achieve a sense of justice.

And we're going to show you what we found when we tried to uncover the identity of this hooded executioner.

It's not a movie.

It's human beings which have been killed.

Every military person knows that you shouldn't rely on international humanitarian law.

They normalise evil.

We must break the circle of impunity to prevent the Russian attack to the next nation.

Toward the end of 2023, I began noticing more cases in which Russian soldiers were executing surrendering Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield. In recent months, and toward the end of 2024, we noticed a big spike.

This specific type of crime, which is related to the execution of our prisoners of war, is definitely, I could say at the moment, it's a priority number one. Almost 90 per cent of all executions happened last year.

So many of these videos that we see filmed by mostly Ukrainian surveillance drones over the battlefield show Ukrainian soldiers coming out of a foxhole or a trench, unarmed, with their hands in the air or behind their head. And they're clearly in the video seen surrendering.

But taking into account that Russians don't notify us how many prisoners of war they have. That's why we really don't know how many, out of these missing guys, how many of them have been as well executed.

The only mechanism how a soldier on the battlefield, a Ukrainian soldier or any other soldier, can rely is international humanitarian law - Third Geneva Convention, for example, for the treatment of prisoners of war.

So international humanitarian law is very clear when it comes to executions. When somebody is sick, wounded on the ground, or has surrendered, from there on it's strictly prohibited to execute such a person.

In some cases, we've seen video footage, filmed by Russian soldiers themselves, first interrogating surrendering Ukrainian soldiers, but also humiliating them before then shooting them at point blank range.

The rules of war have been flouted in many other brutal conflicts around the world. But this is possibly the first time that drones and phones have been able to capture so much of the evidence over the battlefield, especially when it comes to the execution of POWs.

It's definitely part of the policy. It's a system which we see, and it's not about the just accountability of specific soldier, or commander, of a lower level. We see that president of the Russian Federation and all leaders of militaries, they also would be responsible for this crime.

This is a Oleg Yakovlev. He's a 32-year-old Russian soldier, a father of two daughters. He likes rapping...

...and drugs.

His badges say he's from the Storm Unit of Russia's 30th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade. Storm units are made up of convicted criminals...

...released early for agreeing to fight. And we know that Oleg has had several run-ins with the law, including a four-year sentence in 2018 for manufacturing cannabis oil, and a conviction for theft in 2022.

His YouTube videos are a snapshot of a soldier's life, at war and at home. He even shows us where he lives - Saratov, a port city on the Volga River, 900km southeast of Moscow.

And then, on January 22 this year he posted this - a three and a half minute video showing the execution of six Ukrainian servicemen. The Ukrainians are easily identified by their yellow armbands.

A hooded man is directing events. He appears to have handed over a phone, and is demanding to be filmed. He makes sure a drone above them has left and then orders two Ukrainian POWs into the open.

The Russians shoot the two Ukrainians in the back.

Even as the next victim is shot, one of the Russian soldiers pleads to have a turn.

We believe there are grounds to investigate further whether Oleg is the hooded executioner. The other Russian soldiers addressed the man by a call sign, Sara. That could be a short form for Oleg's hometown, which we know is Saratov. It's also how Oleg introduces himself in his rap.

And the name soldiers call out in Oleg's other YouTube videos.

Sara. Sara.

And it's the hooded man who repeatedly asks to be filmed, in a video that then appeared for the first time on Oleg's YouTube channel.

We asked a team of forensic audio experts to compare Oleg's voice from his social videos to the voice in the execution video.

They carried out a full audio spectral analysis. Due to how social media compresses video files, definitive answers are difficult. But the team concluded that the frequency fingerprints did display strong elements of similarity. When the fifth victim is marched into the open, it's the hooded man we see opening fire.

By the end of the video, the Russians have shot down six Ukrainians. It took less than 80 seconds.

When the video cuts out, one Ukrainian is left.

We'll come back to Oleg later in the film. I'll show how he responded when I got the chance to question him about the execution.

I am deeply concerned by a significant increase in credible allegations of executions of Ukrainian military personnel captured by Russian armed forces. Summary executions constitute a war crime.

Between the full-scale invasion in February 2022 and the end of 2024 Ukrainian prosecutors opened pre-trial investigations into 59 separate execution cases. These cases involved the suspected killings of more than 201 Ukrainian prisoners of war. In 2024, there were 43 separate cases involving 133 suspected executions. The FT identified and mapped 30 of those cases, involving at least 109 victims. In more than half of those incidents we were able to view video evidence, and prosecutors confirmed to us that they believed all those incidents were credible.

It was not always possible to pinpoint the exact date and location. But what's clear is that cases were recorded all along the front line, with a big increase later in the year. Prosecutors say this means it's not just one or two rogue units that are responsible, and indicates that execution is a Russian policy.

But fully verifying exactly what happened, when, where, to whom, and by whom is complex. Army units do not always report suspected cases, and sometimes prosecutors are only made aware of cases when videos are published on social media. For its part, the UN has recorded 24 credible incidents since the end of August last year, involving 79 executions. The Centre for Information Resilience has also been tracking and investigating cases.

We assess credibility based primarily through visual investigations - so visual verification, chronolocation, geolocation. When we're looking at these kind of incidents, a way in which we can tell the difference between Ukrainian and Russian soldiers is that Russians will have darker uniforms. These will tend to be more of a green uniform. Whereas Ukrainians will have a lighter uniform, more towards a grey or kind of sandish colour.

We'll look for something called IFF, the identification friendly foe. So these are bands worn on the sleeves, sometimes on the thighs, sometimes on the armour or the helmet. Ukrainians will use things like green, yellow, and blue IFF, whereas Russians use red and white. And this is a pretty key indicator.

So in this video, in Zaporizhzhia in February, we can see three men who we've identified as likely to be Ukrainian servicemen. We know this because they're in lighter uniforms. They appear to be unarmed. They appear, perhaps, not to have their helmets on, and likely to have their armoured chest rigs on.

We also have three men who are in darker coloured uniform. One has a white armband on, which is consistent with the Russian military identification friend or foe band. Two men appear to be instructed to leave the trench. They're brought out above the trench, and they're shot by one of the men in dark uniforms.

After these two men are shot, the dark uniform Russian serviceman walks over to the third and shoots him. We can identify that he was alive prior to this incident as he was moving around a little bit. When he's actually shot, his body jerks.

It is quite clear to us that this is a pretty cut and dry execution. These men were unarmed. They're very likely to be Ukrainian, and they were shot by men who are very likely to be Russian servicemen.

In this video, we can see at least five, maybe six Ukrainian soldiers who are lying on the floor. The man at the top of the screen appears to be in a sort of darker green uniform, consistent with the Russian military. Several of the individuals we identify as Ukrainian are already dead. We can see this because there's blood, there's lack of movement.

And two were shot point blank. We can see them moving prior to the incident. We know that they were alive. We also know that they were unarmed, as well.

So right at the end of the video the man who was talked to by the Russian soldiers is then undressed. He's led away, and the video cuts out. We're not entirely sure what happens to him. Perhaps he's questioned. Perhaps he's also executed, the same as the other five men in the video.

Investigators are also looking at cases of beheadings, and a soldier with his hands tied who was stabbed with a sword. Sometimes the Russians film and post the videos themselves. In this case, a mock execution of a prisoner of war.

Mock execution is a war crime, but the Russian soldier is happy to show his face to the camera.

Accountability for all of these killings is essential, and instead, there is almost total impunity.

Perhaps the most well known execution video surfaced about a year after the start of the full-scale invasion.

And it showed a soldier named Oleksandr Matsievsky, and he's speaking to somebody behind the camera. And that person is a Russian soldier who's filming him. He asked him if he has any last words, anything to say. And Matsievsky very calmly puts a cigarette in his mouth and lights it. And then he says 'Slava Ukraini', meaning 'Glory to Ukraine'.

There could be many reasons for Russia implementing a policy of executing Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield, rather than taking them prisoner.

First of all, I think it's a kind of frustration from Russian forces. Putin gave them so many orders to capture Donetsk region, Luhansk region, but they still can't do it.

Their own lives are worth nothing for their commanders. So maybe that's why they can't pay attention to lives and health of Ukrainian soldiers, too.

I think we have to go back to the beginning of this invasion and recall that Vladimir Putin set out very specific goals in mind. One is to demilitarise this country. So executing male soldiers, you're getting rid of a combatant on the battlefield.

This is their war habit. On the front line, when you have some hostilities with Russians, you can't rely on any humanity.

The execution video featuring the hooded man was shared widely after Ukrainian war journalist Yuriy Butusov posted it on Telegram. We found what we think is the original video post from a day earlier on Oleg's YouTube channel. Dating and locating the video is difficult, but the lack of foliage on the trees and the thick clothing worn by some of the soldiers suggests autumn or later. In autumn Oleg's brigade was stationed near the frontline hotspot of Pokrovsk. Russian soldiers were advancing amid fierce fighting, and reportedly suffering huge losses.

I contacted Oleg on Russian networking site VKontakte, and spoke to him via messages. He appeared to acknowledge it was his YouTube channel where the video was posted. But when I asked him if he had executed any Ukrainian soldiers, he said no. He also said he didn't know anything about the men in the video.

And in a bizarre rant, he said he wasn't a soldier but an invalid, an old man, a car mechanic. Then he warned me off investigating further. At one point, he did at least offer a comment on the execution video. 'The boy killed those guys for a reason,' he said. 'Russian soldiers don't kill people for no reason.'

As we were speaking, all his YouTube videos were taken offline. In July, President Putin awarded Oleg's brigade for bravery and heroism during combat. But in one of his video posts Oleg says most Russian soldiers only sign up to fight for the money, and are soon longing to come home

Military analysts like Deep State map and track developments on the battlefield. They even have a memorandum of understanding with the Ukrainian Defence Ministry. Sometimes soldiers don't want to go through official channels, so they might send execution videos to Deep State to analyse and publicise instead. The founders invited us into their office in Kyiv. In the corridor, shelves full of mementos from the battlefield.

The souvenirs underline how Deep State is not just reliant on OSINT, or Open Source Intelligence, like videos and photos published online. They also have extensive first-hand contacts with the military.

A soldier posted this drone footage on Telegram.

The UN later verified 10 deaths, and you can count 10 men before they're gunned down in the footage. Ukrainian prosecutors noted another six to eight thermal silhouettes resembling human bodies near the execution site. And Deep State says it trusts a death toll of 16, based on information from a first-hand observation. But in many cases evidence is often partial or non-existent.

In international law it's not just those who pulled the trigger who were guilty, but also those who give the orders or fail to prevent these crimes.

Ukraine's Defence Intelligence services say the man speaking in this intercept is a Russian brigade commander.

There are also orders from higher up the chain, like a statement from the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, in October.

Then there's Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. In December, he appeared at his press conference with the flag of the country's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade. The brigade had been fighting in Kursk, where Ukraine made incursions into Russian territory. But it's also been accused of multiple war crimes, including beheadings, and in October, the execution of nine drone operators.

Suspected Russian war criminals have even received star treatment back home. The two men featured in these publicity videos were selected by Putin's Time of Heroes Elite Management School. But months earlier Ukrainian intelligence said they had been identified over a very different video, naming them among five Russians who executed four Ukrainian servicemen.

Neither the Kremlin nor Russia's Ministry of Defence responded to questions for this film. Russia has repeatedly denied allegations about executions as propaganda and disinformation. And it has also accused Kyiv's troops of carrying out the same crime.

The UN has highlighted the spike in Russian soldiers executing Ukrainian POWs. But in its November report it did also say it had verified three instances where a Ukrainian FPV drone had killed a severely wounded Russian on the battlefield. This is one section of a Ukrainian video that shows the chaos of trench warfare.

Ukraine's Azov Brigade said their soldiers were clearing enemy positions. The Russians claimed their man was unarmed and begging not to be shot. Former prime minister Dmitry Medvedev was among those to respond. He quoted a World War TWo era poet, and apparently called for executions in kind.

Ukraine feels it's the victim of a rogue state that the west and other global powers have not pulled back into line and made to respect international norms. They see this as a continuum since Putin came to power, with the war in Chechnya, with the war in Syria, where Russia supported the Bashar al-Assad regime, to Russia's presence through the Wagner mercenary outfit in Africa, where they also committed appalling crimes against the local population.

International human rights lawyer Wayne Jordash leads Global Rights Compliance, an organisation that supports investigations by Ukrainian war crimes prosecutors. Jordash has worked on war crimes investigations in places like Iraq, Yemen and Syria. He says the big difference here in Ukraine is that criminality is an intentional part of Russia's war strategy.

The military operations are inherently criminal. They incorporate criminality as a matter of intent. It's quite clear looking at the patterns, what you see is, at the very least, a plan to control Ukraine, extinguish Ukrainian identity.

When Russian troops occupied areas like the southern city of Kherson, they detained men of all ages and professions, who were then tortured, sexually abused, and even killed - the aim, to subjugate the local population.

What that means is you have a campaign to commit war crimes. A campaign to commit crimes against humanity. And there is also a real possibility, in my view, of a campaign of genocide.

Ukrainian investigators have initiated more than 125,000 war crimes proceedings since the start of the full-scale invasion, and Jordash believes the executions fit into this overall campaign of criminality.

If you're trying to extinguish Ukrainian identity, or you are trying to destroy part of the Ukrainian group, as in a genocidal campaign, you need to remove the Ukrainian military, you need to remove the Ukrainian security apparatus. Because if you remove them you leave the rest of the population vulnerable.

Torture and sexual violence, it's instrument of Russians. When you look to this picture you have a clear understanding that people can't stay here even for a short time.

Oleksandra Matviichuk says these deliberate war crimes are designed to break the will of the people.

We are documenting how Russian troops deliberately shelling residential buildings, schools, churches, museums and hospitals.

How they forcibly taken Ukrainian children to Russia. How they abducting, robbing, raping and killing civilians in the occupied territories. It's a way how Russia tries to break people's resistance and occupy the country.

This is my friend Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian writer. She was killed by Russian rockets in Kramatorsk when Russians deliberately hit a cafe in Kramatorsk. This is a memory.

This hell, which we now face in Ukraine, is the result of total impunity, which Russia enjoyed for decades. Russia commit horrible crimes in Chechnya, in Georgia, in Mali, in Libya, in Syria, in other countries of the world. Russia has never been punished. Russia believes that they can do whatever they want. We must break the circle of impunity - not just for people in Ukraine, but to prevent the next Russian attack to the next nation.

Matviichuk wants to create a special tribunal on aggression to hold Putin and Russia's political and military leadership accountable. She says they started the war, so they're responsible for all that followed. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Putin and his children's commissioner over the alleged abduction of Ukrainian children, and against military commanders for attacks on energy infrastructure.

But neither Russia nor the US are signatories to the ICC. And the US has even sanctioned ICC officials over their investigations into Israel's offensive in Gaza. Western sanctions on Russia, meanwhile, have failed to stop the war. In the quest for justice, Ukrainian investigators also face numerous challenges on the ground; a lack of access to frontline crime scenes, to resources, manpower and expertise, the sheer number of crimes and the number of people involved.

Putin does not sit in the Kremlin ordering rapes in Bucha. What he does, though, is design a policy which he understands and knows leads to crimes on the ground. And instead of changing his policy, he pursues it with vigour.

Therein lies his criminal intent. But proving it means you have to define the policy. You have to define the links of that policy to the crimes on the ground, and then you have to define specifically what his contribution was to that policy. Talk about a complicated jigsaw.

There's one case that we know of right now in Ukraine where a Russian soldier who is believed to have taken part in the execution of a Ukrainian soldier is on trial.

Dmitrii Kurashov, call sign 'Stalker,' is accused of killing a surrendered Ukrainian soldier. Prosecutors say the victim laid down his weapon and left his dugout with his arms raised. Kurashov then ordered him to kneel down and opened fire with an assault rifle.

Kurashov initially denied carrying out the execution and blamed one of his comrades. But later pleaded guilty in court, only to then tell journalists he was, in fact, innocent. This is the first case of its kind where a Russian soldier has been captured and put on trial over an execution.

The most famous trials were those held in Nuremberg, when 21 high Nazis faced their accusers. Hitler was dead, but these were his chief lieutenants.

Where justice has been effective, where war crimes have been successfully prosecuted, it has often been where leaders, or perpetrators, have been forced out of power.

Both Ukraine and Russia signed the Geneva Conventions, which set out how soldiers and civilians should be treated during war. But upholding the conventions and the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law is a different matter.

The international rules-based system is under enormous strain, because Russia is a member of the Security Council of the United Nations. It's a system that itself is partly paralysed.

The establishment of the United Nations in 1945 represented humanity's best attempt to prevent any repetition of the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust.

Although there are jurisdictions set up to try and pursue war crimes that are happening globally, it is very difficult to exert international jurisdiction.

The International Committee of the Red Cross describes itself as a guardian of humanitarian law. It works behind the scenes and doesn't take sides. It's supposed to have the right to visit prisoners of war to check on their treatment and conditions.

So our tools are persuasion, are engagement, are dialogue. We don't have elements to enforce these treaties by force. And whilst we're here in Ukraine we have a straightforward relationship. We have a dialogue. We work with authorities. This is not mirrored the same way on the Russian Federation side.

Prisoner swaps do take place, and Ukraine needs to capture Russian soldiers to help free its own servicemen. Russia, on the other hand, already has far more Ukrainians in detention.

You know, every military person knows that on the battlefield you shouldn't rely on international humanitarian law. It was just a gentleman's agreement between some countries who said, OK, our soldiers should have possibility to survive, and your soldiers too.

And bit by bit, these exponents of mass murder moved closer and closer to the hangman's noose.

It'll be very hard for Ukraine and its western allies to bring the perpetrators of this horrific war to justice. Russia has not lost this war, and any peace deal will essentially be a ceasefire between two warring parties.

But the Ukraine war has to end. The young people are being killed at levels that nobody's seen since World War Two.

The problem is going to be that that justice may well fall victim to any compromise or peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow to end this war.

For many Ukrainians, it's that prospect that justice can't or won't be served that is so hard to accept.

The international order, which is based on the UN charter and international law, is collapsing before our eyes. And this long-lasting impunity, which Russia enjoyed, they all normalise evil. They create a new normal. And if we will not stop it, we can find ourselves in a world which will be dangerous for everyone, without any exception.

It's possible that we're witnessing more of these crimes because of the increasing use of first person camera drones. But it's highly probable that there are many more incidents we're not witnessing. Drones don't see everything. Recordings are not always taken, not always shared, not always clear.

How many of the missing have been executed? We just don't know. Like this soldier we saw who was led away into the forest, and this one left lying face down in the execution video featuring the hooded man.

What is clear, though, is that reports of executions are continuing, part of a pattern that goes beyond a few rogue units and beyond the soldiers who pulled the trigger. Documenting as much as possible about what really happened in each case can at least help to establish a bedrock of truth, if not the possibility of justice.

We are facing a prospect of a partial description, and I think it will have real consequences for persuading the rest of the world what really happened.

Even if we didn't find all the perpetrators, our children and our, you know, grandchildren should see what the Russians did here.

Putin attempts to convince the entire world that freedom, democracy, human rights, rule of law are fake values. If Russia succeeds, we can find ourselves in a world where space for freedom will be shrinking to the size of a prison cell.