Ukraine says it captured Russian suspect in Kursk POW killings

Ukraine’s intelligence service has captured a Russian man who is believed to be responsible for the killing of nine Ukrainian prisoners of war in the Russian region of Kursk, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday.

“We will find every Russian murderer. Every single one will be held accountable,” Zelensky said in his evening video message from Kiev.

He said he had instructed the deputy head of the SBU intelligence service, Oleksandr Poklad, to make further details public.

It was unclear when the killings took place. In his video, Zelensky referred to “October of last year,” but he likely meant October 2024, which would have been a couple of months after Ukrainian troops advanced into Kursk in August. Russian forces repelled the offensive for several months, declaring the region liberated in late April 2025.

According to data from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) from January, Ukraine is aware of more than 330 cases in which its soldiers were killed after being captured by Russian troops.