AMNESTY International accused both sides in eastern Ukraine yesterday of perpetrating war crimes almost daily, including torturing prisoners and summarily killing them.

The human rights group said that former captives of both Ukrainian government and anti-fascist forces report having suffered savage beatings, torture with electric shocks, kicking and stabbings.

Kiev is already under scrutiny this week for publicly parading two men whom it described as Russian soldiers captured fighting alongside separatists.

Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov were interviewed by journalists while lying in their hospital beds and showing clear signs of physical abuse.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) expressed misgivings over the government’s treatment of the two prisoners.

“It’s important that very widely subscribed to human rights standards be adhered to and that does not include parading them in front of the media,” said OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw.

Amnesty identified the neonazi Right Sector militia as among the worst culprits on the pro-government side.

“Right Sector has reportedly held dozens of civilian prisoners as hostages, brutally torturing them and extorting large amounts of money from them and their families,” it said.

Amnesty said that attempts to persuade the Ukrainian authorities to address complaints about Right Sector had been ignored.

Hundreds of Ukrainian troops are believed to have been captured by rebel forces in the year-long war that has claimed more than 6,100 lives.

Under a February peace agreement, all war prisoners were due for release in early March, but little progress has been achieved.

Amnesty said that the worst abuse tended to occur in the first days of captivity and that groups operating largely outside the chain of command are the most violent.

“The situation on the separatist side is particularly chaotic, with a variety of different groups holding captives in at least a dozen known locations,” it suggested.

People’s Republic of Donetsk spokesman Eduard Basurin rejected Amnesty’s allegations, saying: “They constantly make these accusations, but they are never able to provide any evidence.”

However, the human rights group said that it had corroborated the accounts it had collected with evidence such as X-rays of broken bones, medical records and photographs of injuries.