28.According to the statement, Russian troops captured four Ukrainian defenders during an assault in the Pokrovsk sector on Nov. 22. After forcing the soldiers to surrender, Russian forces are said to have shot them with automatic weapons.In total nine Ukrainian POWs were executed by Russia in the village of Petrivka. It was not immediately clear if the two reported executions are directly connected, or whether they occurred at the same time."The deliberate killing of prisoners of war constitutes a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions and is classified as a grave international crime," the Prosecutor General's Office said in a statement.Reports of murders, torture, and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war are received regularly by Ukrainian authorities and have spiked in recent months.