the most massive case of execution, the office of the prosecutor general of ukraine has started an investigation into the shooting of ukrainian servicemen near pokrovsk, which is known to what extent it is realistic to establish guilt. and bring them to justice. let's try to analyze it in today's edition of the bbc. i am olga polamaryuk. on october 1, a video of the alleged shooting of ukrainian military personnel appeared on telegram channels. black and white footage taken from a drone. the video shows the silhouettes of people coming out of the forest strip and lining up in sherenga. according to the prosecutor's office, these are ukrainian soldiers who were captured near pokrovsk. then, judging by the video, they open fire on them. 16 soldiers -

the most massive known case of execution of ukrainian prisoners of war on the front line, said prosecutor general andriy kostin. the video shows how, under the control of the enemy, the captured people left the forest lane, after they were searched, the enemy deliberately shot them with firearms. the wounded, who showed signs of life, were killed at close range with automatic weapons. we investigate all such reports, which we receive about possible war crimes, and we opened criminal proceedings as soon as we received this information about the mass execution of prisoners of war. the people in the video laid down their arms and did not resist, they were under the complete control of the enemy, and from that moment they are prisoners of war and are under the protection of the third geneva convention. of course, as in any such investigation, we are verifying the video that was shared, we are in contact with units of the ukrainian armed forces in this sector and ahead. we have identified subdivisions of which

presumably there were casualties, but we must carefully verify this information before naming these units. since the beginning of the russian full-scale invasion , we have documented a total of more than 140,000 cases of war crimes. in the course of our investigations, we have identified 708 individuals who are suspects in our proceedings. we completed the investigation of 491 suspected war criminals and sent the cases to court. so far, ukrainian courts have convicted 131 russian war criminals. we are conducting a number of investigations that related to the executions of prisoners of war. we are currently conducting pre-trial investigations in 37 criminal proceedings regarding the execution of at least 92 ukrainian prisoners of war. 24 such proceedings were registered during this year. based on the results of these investigations, we reported. suspicion of six russian

servicemen. we have completed the investigation of three of them and sent these cases to court. ukrainian courts convicted two russian war criminals in absentia for the execution of ukrainian prisoners of war. find criminals and bringing them to court is not easy, but we do it despite the difficulties, despite the fact that there is no access to the crime scene. to be shot. ombudsman dmytro lubinets responded. he sent letters to the un and the international committee of the red cross. the us state department has said that ukraine should investigate and that the russians have been doing terrible things since the start of the full-scale war. the russian ministry of defense did not comment on these statements. well, this case of shooting ukrainian soldiers is not the only one. the first executions are fixed from march 2022, as of july 2024, according to the office of the attorney general. of ukraine, more than 110 ukrainian

soldiers were executed after being captured by russia in places of detention, in particular in olenivka. 602 cases refer to executions during capture. the russians committed most of the shootings in the donetsk and zaporizhzhia regions, say the prosecutor's office. well, there is already a verdict of the ukrainian court that the russian army officer was sentenced to life imprisonment for the shooting in chernihiv oblast. so, how difficult is it to investigate russian war crimes under the conditions. fights and look for evidence and the culprits. we talk about this with my colleague ozhena bespiachuk, a bbc correspondent in kyiv in connection with the zhanno studio, but these shots hurt many people, but we have to talk about it. according to prosecutor general kostin, this is the most massive execution of prisoners of war by the russians, but how exactly is it known where and when it happened? greetings, first of all, for now... we can

only rely on, orient ourselves on, the official statement of the ukrainian authorities, in particular the office of the prosecutor general, that the shooting took place between the villages of myhalivka and... and dry yar in the pokrovsky district, where active hostilities are taking place right now, is a fairly large area, the distance between the villages is about 15 km, and in practice, in order to clearly verify this location, to confirm this information, it may take a lot of time, and in order for correlate video with three-dimensional, landscape photos. in this area of ​​the landscape of lands that are available online, this is the first important point, of course the quality of the video is also important, the video is taken from a sufficiently high height and it is black and white, this also affects the speed of verification, determining the location and the chances of success, such

and such verifications can take quite a lot of time, it is important to understand this, as in the magazine. investigators, as well as investigators of ukrainian law enforcement agencies or international investigators, this is the first point, in terms of time, after all, as for location, in fact, this is not the most difficult task yet, the most difficult task, as always, is to identify specific alleged war criminals, those who shot , as we can see from the video of unarmed people and ukrainian prisoners, and... that's about it ukrainian journalists and investigators also face the greatest number of problems and difficulties. yes, zhanna, but this example of violation of the geneva conventions is, unfortunately, not an isolated one, but

how difficult is it, generally speaking, to document and investigate such cases? yes, well, actually, i'm going to continue what we talked about before this without... significantly, as much evidence as possible, and it's important that it be evidence of different types, that is, audio intercepts, and drone videos, and those videos that which will be distributed by the russian military themselves after committing war crimes crimes, so that all this is gathered as quickly as possible, more fully, just now during hostilities, this is very important, because over time something can be lost, there is important, very valuable, for example, information that can confirm war crimes in various publics, telegram - russian channels, and it is very important to collect already... now from the point of view of the media, for example, the verification of this information, there are two extremely problematic points, this is, firstly, access to the place of alleged crimes, and in the end, this is also a huge problem for investigators, for international justice,

there is no access to many locations, in particular to this location, which is probably being talked about now in the pokrovsky district, it may well be that in the near future there will be no access in ukraine, and investigators will not have access, and journalists will not have access . tobo plus we see that the further russian regulars, especially units become more vigilant and close their profiles , personal profiles in social networks , less information becomes so accessible, and social networks tried to verify such information. zhanna, thank you for the conversation, zhanna bespiachuk, a bbc correspondent, was in touch with us from kyiv. thank you. so, how did russia react to the accusations of prosecutor general kosti. in general, do they comment on this topic in the mass media, here is what the journalist and investigator of the bbc, olga ivshina, says. at the moment, the official reaction at the moment there is no official reaction of the representative of the ministry of defense of russia to this event, and most likely there will not be one, representatives of the ministry of defense and the russian authorities only in exceptional cases

comment on the accusations against russia in committing war crimes or in violation of the geneva convention, only in exceptional cases. it is also extremely unlikely that any of the representatives of the russian mass media will ask the official representatives about this, because all independent journalists were forced to leave the territory of russia, or stop their work due to the laws adopted in russia, which even forbid to name the what is happening in ukraine due to the war, and any such question can be interpreted as an attempt to discredit the armed forces, and for this, he faces up to eight years in prison. yet more importantly, representatives of the zt community do not comment on this incident in any way, that is, pro-war bloggers and experts who very actively comment on everything that happens in the war zone. and this is precisely what is very interesting: the fact that they all try to ignore this incident. this

most likely indicates that the very fact of making this video public is extremely unpleasant for moscow. the fact is that almost from the very beginning of the full-scale. and of course, such an incident goes completely against their pr efforts, but he reflects what is really happening at the front. but how realistic is it to bring the culprits to justice? we talk about it with our guest, the executive director of the ukrainian helsinki union for human rights, oleksandr povlichenko. i congratulate you. so, mr. oleksandr, can a video published on social networks serve as evidence of a crime against you? it serves, first of all

, as information for the initiation of a criminal investigation, and therefore the necessary procedural actions must be carried out, of course, it is best to have access to both bodies victims in order to properly conduct a forensic medical examination, as was already indicated in your case before the crime scene, which is currently not issued. realistic, but the collection of all direct and indirect evidence of the commission of this crime must, of course, be done with the utmost care, using all modern possibilities, including digital technologies, to search for direct and indirect witnesses or participants in this crime, and of course, with establishing personal data, such as those who appear directly there as a suspect in the execution of this crime, as well as the command

of this military unit, how realistic it is to do it, well, practice shows that if you make careful efforts, sooner or later you will be able to collect such detailed information, make a mosaic and... and accordingly, if this crime becomes a priority in the investigation and the national law enforcement system, and i think that they can connect to it in the same way, and it deserves the attention of the same international criminal court, which can do one, one major such case, which is defined according to the ukrainian terminology in itself, regarding the arbitrary execution of prisoners of war, which has already become a systematic and massive phenomenon since the autumn of last year, it is a tradition that is bad, but

it is followed in fact with a very frequent regularity, starting since november of last year, and we have, unfortunately, a lot of these cases, which thanks to digital technologies are becoming available, let's turn again eh... to the peculiarities of this war - it is actually a live war , which is also documented thanks to the use of drones, mobile equipment, and other means, which allows, firstly, to receive, as direct and indirect evidence, the fact of committing such a crime, respectively, directly from the battlefield and use it to start conducting. final proceedings, as stated by andriy kostin, this video evidence is already

enough to start working on this criminal case. at the same time, mr. oleksandr, i wonder if there is a statute of limitations for such crimes? we are talking about a war crime and it is defined as killing or wounding a combatant who, laying down his arms or having no more means of protection, surrendered unconditionally and... and this is a war crime, which is also reflected in ukrainian criminal law, according to article 438 to date, this is the roman statute, article eight, paragraph two, and accordingly, these crimes do not have a statute of limitations, of course, thank you for the clarification, the executive director of the ukrainian helsinki union for human rights, oleksandr pavlichenko, was a guest of our broadcast, thank you, and that's all about... what we have time to talk about today , subscribe to our pages in social networks so as not to miss the most important news, we are on

facebook, instagram, tiktok, on youtube you can watch our episode if you missed it on the air, turn on our program tomorrow at 9 p.m., good luck and take care himself.

thursday 9:15 p.m., already 9:16 p.m., and traditionally, at this

time, espresso tv channel starts, as velikiy lviv says, here. in our debating, debating space, which is the largest in the territory of our entire state, during the war we discuss all important events, events that affect the future of our country and the whole world, so we say good evening to all of you and glory to ukraine. glory to the heroes, we congratulate everyone who joined us on the spresso tv channel, we also speak on the nta lvivskyi tv channel and, on youtube, velikiy lviv says, there you can write us comments, we work live, so... we will react to what you also write what interests you, because no matter how much we are predicted by various international media that we need to change course, that we have a difficult autumn, well, we are still here live, the ukrainians are holding on, our soldiers are holding the borders of our state in the east of ukraine, and no matter how difficult it is, we definitely have to

cope with everything, because during these years we finally managed to do it. introducing those guests. who will share their thoughts with us today in this studio are mykola buchyn, political scientist, professor of the national university of lviv polytechnic, good evening, military-political expert, member of the aspen club of ukraine, candidate of legal sciences, andrii andreykiv, good evening, thank you , oksana savchuk, people's deputy of ukraine, represents the all-ukrainian freedom association in the verkhovna rada. good evening, people's deputy of ukraine of the eighth convocation, former head of the permanent delegation of ukraine in the parliamentary assembly. oksana yurenets, good evening. andriy pavlyshyn is a historian, journalist, lecturer at the ukrainian catholic university with us. glory to the hero. ihor zdovychyn, doctor of political sciences, professor of ivan franko national university of lviv. good evening. good evening. mr. andreykiv, you will be asked the first question on our broadcast. we, when we were preparing for our

conversation, on the sidelines of our studio, you told that, well, she had just recently returned from the united states of america, all of ukraine was following the visit very carefully, nervously, sometimes, you know, on the verge of a nervous breakdown president zelensky last week to the united states of america, everything started, well, it was difficult in general, when such angry arrows were openly shot at the ukrainian delegation by trump and his supporters, and trump... a potential future the president of the united states of america, further, it seems that the ukrainian delegation managed to smooth the situation, and president zelenskyi met with trump, trump said that he has an excellent relationship with zelenskyi, although he also has a good relationship with putin, and he will fix everything, but nevertheless, what the united states of america is thinking right now about what

's going on in our country right now, especially given the whole context of the russians moving east. influential international media write about what ukrainians need to review the goals of the war, obviously, hinting at the fact that these goals should be, let's say so, somewhat different, to put it diplomatically, than what everyone, without exaggeration, ukrainians want, what did you see there, what did you feel, where is it going, where is the planet moving, well, in fact, our activity... and our visit was organized as an exchange of opinions of the civil and expert environment between the ukrainian side and representatives of civil and expert society. of the united states of america, we did not participate in any official events that were carried out by the delegation of ukraine within the framework of participation in the session of the united nations organization, but you know, you had to see american politics and

what the so-called deep state does live, and when you communicate with people objectively at the level of some categories, concepts, analysis, risks and objective reality, it creates a feeling or leads to a feeling of coldness because... politics, it's actually very pragmatic, politics is realistic, politics is cynical, and in every planning of any measure, one must be sufficiently prudent, sufficiently balanced, informed and understand that the dynamics of events today are so fast-moving that they must be responded to adequately and quickly and qualitatively, and if ukraine was perceived at the beginning of the armed aggression of the russian federation as equal. .. emotions, support, sympathy in some cases, so that you and i understand that between 250 and 270 thousand ukrainian citizens moved to the united states during the war,

and received both shelter and the right to work, and some social support, but ukraine is not the only problem that the united states has to work with, it is on the agenda, it is the actualization of our tasks, problems or risks, it is known to the establishment of the united states, but they want to... understand, what is our vision for the future and what is the form or formula of our agenda, in the short term and in the long term, they want to understand specific steps, specific actions, specific institutions, specific players, specific political conditions and the circumstances that will be formed here, the rhetoric is simply that everything is bad for us, we are at war with the aggressor in the second and a half year, this is actually the rhetoric of the past, it must be... revised, what is happening to the americans, the americans are actually the level of ordinary citizens, they sympathize, they are ready to support, and we have heard such

analytics that about 50% of the citizens of the united states definitely support aid to ukraine, and then there are 30% who, in principle, are ready to support any activity of the american government in relation to ukraine, but they they want to see the understanding and prospects of those goals that... are to be achieved, and it seems to me that the visit of the ukrainian delegation, this peace plan that was brought, was actually the message for those 3% of american citizens and the establishment that they wanted to explain what ukraine sees as the achievement of peace, what instruments it is going to use, what resources it needs, and at the same time everyone is talking about risks, about the risks of any moment of escalation during the development of certain conditions and events, then we understood that on the number one agenda of the united states is still china. china, and those coalitions that are formed from it, because both the trade partnership of europe and america, and the attraction

of resources and the mutual connection of the economic sector, it is extremely large. there, we heard american research, that the american government is actually experiencing the protectionist policy of the chinese government, which is simply financing the development of the economic sectors that are the most competitive for both america and europe. that is, the chinese government pours in money, if, for example, they wanted to build one of the metallurgical plants in mexico, then literally only the calculation and design period was spent on the fact that the chinese have already built such a plant, the same applies to charger cars, the same applies to new types of green energy , that is, the world is competitive, and we need to communicate with the united states on the basis of benefits, that is, the gains of some or those profits that we can bring to this or that political force by supporting or... promoting ukrainian politics, another point is the level of military-political, military-political cooperation, it seems to me that at some stage of our

relations we lost the opportunity to receive extensive military assistance in terms of training and formation of new units in order to transform the ukrainian army to a qualitatively new level, unfortunately, those initiatives , which were promoted by our western partners, did not always receive an adequate and quick response in order to implement new practices and new methodologies in the armed forces of ukraine. all the same, this post-soviet which exists in our army, it is playing a not very good joke with us. and finally, i would like to confirm that both think tanks, such as the heritage foundation and the atlantic council, all say that ukraine remains on the agenda of american politics, regardless of the results of the elections, because both trump and camila kha clearly define that this support will continue, the only question is the form, size and content of this support that we can expect in the future, and here the ball is actually in the court of

ukrainian politicians. ukrainian of the establishment, well, this is a plus, there is no doubt that we have support, of course, that what president zelensky left with was primarily related to the amount of weapons and what we can receive from our partners, and here are these materials that came out already after his visit, we will now show some quotes, because, well, through these media, we can understand certain trends of how partners think and talk about it, in particular, an economist wrote: but such a loud headline that the war is going badly, ukraine and its allies it is necessary to change course, and write that if ukraine and its western allies want to win, they must first have the courage to admit that they are losing for the moment, and if zelensky continues to deny reality and insist that the ukrainian army can liberate all the lands, as russia, which russia has occupied since 2014 , he will push away ukraine's allies and further divide ukrainian society, well,

this is their interpretation. of what is happening in our country, financial times also wrote that difficult times await ukraine, and this is what why they emphasize that they say american officials were not impressed with this zelenskyi victory plan, which includes requests for huge quantities of western weapons, an adviser who helped prepare the document says that zelenskyi had no choice but to repeat his insistence on nato membership. mr. buchyn, i have a question for you, what are you observing right now... after this visit that took place, what can we expect? well, come on, for a start i want to say that after all, well, you don't have to to consider it in such pessimistic tones, no matter what, zelensky has not received, for example, so far, yes, permission to strike, for example, with american weapons on the territory of russia, long-range, yes, strikes, it is meant on military objects, but well, we know that he brought about 8 billion military aid.

america gave, and this is a colossal amount, and it will definitely have positive consequences for ukraine and will have a certain influence on the course of the war and on the course of events on the battlefield. in addition, the visit really began, as you already said they said, quite not quite, let's say, well, since there were really certain objections from both trump and johnson, who somewhere talked about what we seem to have organized there, in particular. during a visit to a factory in pennsylvania there, for example, an action in support of the democrats, and we correspond to the elections, yes, we interfere in the elections and so on, that is, but those things, well, first of all, somewhere so, let's say, they took a back seat , and secondly, there was, in my opinion, a rather successful meeting with donald trump, well, it seems to me, perhaps largely because trump is an emotional person, and he may have met, talked somewhere, and, accordingly, have a heart to heart, maybe somewhere and it is not

possible. to rule out that he has changed his position, accordingly, he begins to treat the possibilities of ending and regulating the russian-ukrainian war there a little differently. eh, besides, eh, well, i would certainly not talk now about the fact that our situation is catastrophic, but we are losing in the east, we are gaining something in the kurshchyna, or at least we are not losing, well, now there is somewhere there, but today there were news about the fact that we still stopped the advance near chasovoy yar, partly near pokrovsk, therefore... in principle, if the situation were dynamic, the situation is not yet, well, let's say, such that we can already say defeat or victory is felt, therefore in the principles of events are developing, we have every chance in this war not only to survive, but also to win. in terms of what actually happens next, i think the key moment will be who will be the first president of the united states, because let's be honest, that will be the factor that will determine the fate of the

not only the russian-ukrainian war, but also in general... the world order for the coming decades, secondly, well, it is very important for us that, regardless of the results of the elections, we attract the bipartisan support of the american, let's say, politicians, and what is even more important, that what mr. andreykiv spoke about, that we have total support from american voters, because the electorate is the resource that will enable us, let's say, to have certain levers of influence on... american politics, on american politicians and to make ukraine, regardless of schedules, results, remained a priority and remained at a prominent place in american foreign policy. people's deputy of ukraine, secretary of the parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence, cyborg, colonel of the sbu, roman kostenko with us on direct skype. mr. roman, well, you made several statements this week that...