In a newly intercepted call, Russian servicemembers are heard discussing the execution of a Ukrainian prisoner of war, inadvertently documenting a war crime, reports Ukraine’s defense intelligence.

According to Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR), the commander of a unit within the 60th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 5th Army of the Russian Armed Forces gives the criminal order to kill a Ukrainian Defense Forces captive.

“They also took a captured ‘Ukrop’ [derogatory term used by Russians to mock Ukrainians] with them, as far as I understood,” a Russian soldier says in the intercepted call published on Monday, Jan. 6.

“Talk to this ‘Ukrop’ personally and erase him,” the Russian soldier adds.

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HUR indicates that the recording serves as further evidence of the systematic violations of international humanitarian law by the Russian Armed Forces.

Last week Kyiv Post reported that Russian officers are instructing their soldiers positioned closer to the front line to shoot and torture the local population.

Ukrainian forces found the phone of one of the Russian soldiers, who filmed his comrade, Oleg Igorevych Rudakov (“Rudik”), giving criminal orders to “clean up” residents.

“Whoever hears me, this is an order: clean out the residents, cleanse them out,” he says in an intercepted conversation.

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Rudakov attempted to reach out to a soldier with the call sign “Jurist,” who was stationed closer to the front line. Therefore, an order was given to shoot at local cars, kill civilians, and torture them.

“Shoot all the local cars, f**k, I’d rather just take them all down... Tie up all the locals, f**k... I don’t know how to tie them – throw them all in the basement,” said Rudakov, summarily sentencing the residents of Nevske, Luhansk region.

In November, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office reported that Russian forces had once again violated international humanitarian law (IHL), also known as laws of armed conflict (LOAC), killing two civilians in Toretsk, the Donetsk region, with another local was injured.

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According to the investigation, on the evening of Nov. 21, 2024, Russian soldiers entered one of the apartments in a residential area of the city, where three civilians were present.

“The occupiers deliberately opened fire on them with automatic weapons, resulting in two local women being killed on the spot. A man nearby was injured with fractures to his shoulder and collarbone,” the prosecutor’s report read.

Kyiv Post has previously reposted intercepted conversations that may violate Kremlin operational security and reveal the morale of Russian soldiers, their families, and ordinary citizens. Examples of intercepted conversations can be found here:

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