In a report, the human rights nongovernmental organization (NGO) added that it had received reports that Russian forces had also executed six other Ukrainian soldiers who were in the process of surrendering or who had already surrendered. “Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, [Russian] forces have committed many heinous war crimes,” HRW’s Crisis and Conflict Director Belkis Wille said in a statement. “The summary execution – or murder – of surrendering and wounded Ukrainian soldiers, shot in cold blood, is also part of that shameful legacy,” Wille added. HRW recalled that, in March 2023, a United Nations mission accused the Russian armed forces and the Russian paramilitary group Wagner of executing 15 Ukrainian prisoners of war. In another report, released last March, the United Nations mentioned the execution by Russian forces of at least 32 prisoners of war or Ukrainian soldiers who had already surrendered. “While each of these cases is horrific, perhaps the most damning is the evidence suggesting that in at least one case Russian forces gave explicit orders to kill soldiers rather than allow them to surrender, thereby endorsing war crimes,” Belkis Wille said. The HRW report stated that, according to videos captured by Russian military drones and published online in February, a leader gave the following order to Russian soldiers in the Donetsk region: “take no prisoners, shoot everyone.” The Russian military offensive in Ukrainian territory, launched on 24 February 2022, plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since the Second World War (1939-1945). Recent months have been marked by large-scale Russian air strikes against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, while Kyiv’s forces have targeted areas in Russian territory near the border and in the Crimean peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014. Now in its third year of war, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been facing a shortage of weapons and ammunition, despite repeated promises of aid from Western allies. Read Also: EUA anunciam mais sanções à Rússia devido à guerra e armas químicas (Portuguese version)