[JURIST] Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] said Thursday that it has evidence showing that Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine killed several captured government soldiers in severe violation of international humanitarian law. According to AI, there are pictures [AI report] showing bullet wounds to the heads and bodies of four Ukrainian soldiers who were confirmed dead. Over the past year it has been estimated that hundreds of Ukrainian troops have been captured by rebel forces and nearly 6,000 have died [BBC report] as a result of the war. Earlier this week Arseniy Pavlov, a rebel unit commander, admitted to the Kyiv Post [media website] via a telephone interview that he personally shot 15 Ukrainian servicemen to death. AI will seek to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators responsible for the deaths. Denis Krivosheev, deputy director at Amnesty International for Europe and Central Asia, said “the torture, ill-treatment and killing of captured, surrendered or wounded soldiers are war crimes.”

The crisis between Russia and eastern Ukraine has intensified [JURIST news archive] over the past few months with no sign of a resolution in sight. Though some progress has been made [BBC timeline] after the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed rebels agreed to a cease-fire deal in February brokered by Western leaders in Belarus. Earlier this month Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced that [JURIST report] the Ukrainian government would no longer object to allowing a referendum that could grant greater autonomy to the eastern regions of the country controlled by Russian-backed rebels. In March Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] said that the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed rebel forces consistently used cluster [JURIST report] munitions in eastern Ukraine in early 2015, killing close to 13 civilians, including two children. Last October AI documented extra-judicial killings [JURIST report] by both pro-Russian separatists and pro-Kyiv forces in eastern Ukraine, though the advocacy group cautioned that the actual number of deaths might not be an accurate figure as reported by the Russian media.