unarmed

"I'm not denying that the situation got out of control, nor that many lives were lost needlessly. But I never issued any order to fire on unarmed civilians," she said.

Museum guards are often unarmed, and valuable works are kept in vulnerable display cases rather than vaults.

Just last month, a British soldier was cleared of killing unarmed civilians during the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre, angering relatives of the victims and political leaders.

While the main RSF force rampaged through el-Fasher, a separate group of fighters remained on the periphery of the city, where they engaged in the brutal executions of a number of unarmed captives.

They said they saw Hodniuk emerge from the foxhole unarmed with his hands up after Kurashov called for Ukrainians to come out of their foxholes and surrender.