THE former head of British military operations in Afghanistan has said images of dead civilians in Ukraine point to war crimes committed by Russian troops.

Colonel Richard Kemp, a former member of the Joint Intelligence Committee, said there appears to have been a policy of systematically killing civilians to spread terror.

Asked if video footage pointed towards war crimes, he told GB News: “If what we can see from the footage that we’ve watched in the media is as it appears, and Russian troops have indeed deliberately shot innocent civilians in the street – then absolutely. It looks like it looks very much that way.

“There are circumstances in which civilians could have been fighting against the Russians, we know that somebody has armed themselves with different types of weapons to fight the Russians, and that would be a different issue if they were fighting against civilians who were fighting them, but it looks rather different.

“It looks like systematic, deliberate killing of innocent civilians, whether it’s for recreational amusement for themselves, or for reasons of terrifying the local population and terrifying and terrorising the Ukrainian people. Whatever the motivation, it looks that way, yes, certainly.”

He made his comments during The Briefing with Darren McCaffrey on GB News.

Colonel Kemp added that war crimes trials would be a distant prospect with Putin likely to remain in power for the foreseeable future.

He said: “In Western countries, Britain, America or whatever, when soldiers are accused of war crimes, then they’re investigated and if necessary, tried by those countries.

“That could only happen in Russia if Vladimir Putin is brought down.

“The [new] government, a government that wants to ensure that law and order is maintained, then investigates and tries and if necessary, punishes the people responsible. If that doesn’t happen, it has to be done by an international tribunal.

“You could say ordering a war of aggression by Vladimir Putin is a war crime in itself, and that’s something that’s much more clear cut but actually pinning down the killing of some poor man riding on his bike, being shot in the back of the head by a Russian soldier to an individual and prosecuting that individual is rather different.

“You’re in a war zone collecting intelligence, collecting evidence is very, very hard.”