Russia is executing Ukrainian prisoners as a war policy, a shocking discovery that reveals war crimes and a broad breakdown in command and control of its military, according to a report.
Amid escalating rhetoric between President Donald Trump and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Trump seeks a diplomatic solution to end Russia's war in Ukraine, the head of Ukraine's war crimes department is warning of "priority number one" being allegations of war crimes and systematic executions of prisoners of war.
"It's definitely part of the policy," Ukraine war crimes chief prosecutor Yuriy Belousov told the Financial Times. "It's a system that we see."
The FT reportedly found documented evidence of Russian executions as alleged by Ukraine, proving they are not isolated incidents of bad apples in Vladimir Putin's war machine but following orders of policy.
The reported evidence shows an identifiable Russian soldier — allegedly Oleg Yakovlev, 32 — being filmed performing mass executions of prisoners of war, harrowing genocidal evidence on the level of the Holocaust, raising questions about Russia's war machine chain of command and potential Kremlin policy directing it.
Belousov's war crimes department has 125,000 cases underway since the start of Putin's invasion nearly three years ago, with 43 incidents and 133 suspected deaths recorded in 2024 alone, according to the FT.
Yakovlev's now-deleted video of mass execution was exposed on his YouTube channel in January, FT reported.
The video shows him in a hoodie, ordering six unarmed Ukrainian prisoners toward a pile of logs before shooting them in the back at close range.
Yakovlev was allegedly identified in the video by his call sign 'Sara,' which, according to the FT, is the same name he uses in an online rap video.
Forensic experts are analyzing voices in the video and comparing them to Yakovlev's social media clips to confirm whether he was the executioner and orchestrator of war crimes, FT reported.
The investigation has "strong elements of similarity" but thus far has no definitive forensic evidence.
Yakovlev has denied the allegations and said a Russian soldier in the video "killed those guys for a reason," according to the report.
Yakovlev's brigade was given an award by Putin in July for "bravery and heroism."
Russia did not respond to FT's requests for comment, but it has called similar past allegations "propaganda."
The FT's documentary evidence includes over 30 suspected POW executions, captured through drone and mobile footage along the front lines of Russia's war in Ukraine.
"On any territory where they have a fight now with our guys, our soldiers are all at high risk of being executed," Belousov told FT. "Again, it's a sign of the policy."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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