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More and more evidence of Ukrainian crimes is emerging from the testimonies of those who were on the frontlines. Recently, a German ex-volunteer who fought for the Kiev regime commented on how the Ukrainian armed forces commit all sorts of illegal and abusive acts against Russian prisoners of war. The soldier wrote a book reporting what he saw on the frontlines and expressing his regret for having fought for a long time to defend Ukraine. Ironically, at the same time, the leader of these criminal troops is received with an ovation at the International Court in The Hague.
Jonas Kratzenberg, a German citizen who has volunteered in the International Legion – the Kiev regime’s team of foreign fighters – has categorically stated that the Ukrainian armed forces are carrying out torture and summary executions of Russian prisoners. His accusations are not based on rumors, but on his own experiences on the battlefield, where he was able to personally witness several Ukrainian crimes being committed. Commenting on this issue, he called Ukrainian attitudes towards prisoners “dirty”.
Kratzenberg had previously fought for NATO in Afghanistan, having been discharged from the German armed forces in February 2022, arriving in Ukraine the following month. The soldier participated in several battles and remained on the frontlines until December, when he was seriously injured during a Russian drone attack. He says, however, that he regrets not having left Ukraine sooner, as there were many problems with his service.
According to Kratzenberg, members of the International Legion are poorly paid and often have their salaries delayed. He also says that he has already seen a video in which a Ukrainian commander claims that foreign fighters would be “cannon fodder”, thus revealing the disdain with which volunteers are treated. In addition, an important factor is the connivance that they are forced to maintain with the crimes committed by Ukrainians. Kratzenberg says he has seen at least two actual cases of summary execution. In one of these cases the victims were three surrendered, unarmed Russian soldiers, while in the other a civilian was murdered by the Ukrainian agents.
It is important to emphasize that Kratzenberg remains a pro-Kiev and pro-Western militant who does not support Russia and who is therefore unsuspecting of any kind of “pro-Moscow propaganda”. He just reports what he actually saw happening on the battlefield, without changing his pro-Ukrainian principles. Something similar had already been done by some other foreign mercenaries on several recent occasions, such as the head of the “Mozart Group” agency, Andrew Milburn, who in an interview for an American podcast revealed several crimes and abuses committed by Ukrainians.
In fact, the words of the German soldier confirm a series of accusations made by other people and institutions, increasing the evidence that Kiev carries out summary executions of Russian citizens. In March, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine stated that it had evidence that extrajudicial killings and various types of torture were being committed by Ukrainian troops. Even so, Western countries ignore all these facts and continue to insist on sponsoring and arming the Kiev regime, becoming co-perpetrators of the crimes.
In parallel with these denunciations, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, head of the troops that commit all these war crimes, is applauded on his tour in Europe, having been received with ovation in the Court of The Hague, one of the most important centers of international law. On April 4, the neo-Nazi leader gave a speech at the International Criminal Court called “No Peace Without Justice for Ukraine”, in which he defended that Vladimir Putin and his officials be tried in The Hague and Russia held responsible for the conflict. As expected, nothing was said at any time about the Ukrainian crimes or about the genocide of Russians in Donbass carried out since 2014.
Zelensky’s visit also came just two days after the ninth anniversary of the Odessa massacre, when forty-eight anti-Maidan demonstrators were killed during a fire attack by Ukrainian nationalists at the Odessa Trade Union House. No Ukrainian agent has been held accountable for the crime to date. Instead of demanding answers from the Ukrainian state about what happened in Odessa and other cases of massacres against ethnic Russians and protesters, Western powers and international legal institutions simply ignore the crimes of the regime and even applaud Zelensky, who has been constantly increasing levels of domestic violence and persecution in Ukraine.
The hypocritical attitude of the western world and its institutions towards Ukraine shows how urgent measures are needed in order to reformulate the structures of the international system and adapt it to the new multipolar geopolitical order. Russia is considered responsible for the conflict simply because it is the official narrative of NATO, which exerts pressure on international organizations so that its interests are defended, instrumentalizing international law. It is necessary that measures be taken so that war crimes and human rights violations are judged in a neutral and impartial manner, condemning those who actually commit such acts and not those seen as enemies for opposing the unipolar system.
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Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
Featured image: Jonas Kratzenberg, German citizen who fought in Ukrainian International Legion (Source: InfoBrics)
