LAS VEGAS (AP) — Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert said he could tell from the noise his teammates made from neighboring meeting rooms on Saturday “that good things were happening.”
Los Angeles needed the Steelers to lose to the Bengals that night to have a shot at the fifth seed in the AFC playoffs. Cincinnati did its part by beating Pittsburgh, which provided the Chargers with a big opportunity Sunday.
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Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Jakobi Meyers, middle left, is congratulated by tight end Brock Bowers after scoring against the Los Angeles Chargers during the first half of an NFL football game in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Las Vegas Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce reacts during the first half of an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Chargers in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh, left, walks on the sideline during the first half of an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Los Angeles Chargers wide receiver DJ Chark Jr. (9) celebrates after scoring against the Las Vegas Raiders during the first half of an NFL football game in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Las Vegas Raiders tight end Michael Mayer (87) is tackled by Los Angeles Chargers cornerback Cam Hart (20) during the first half of an NFL football game in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Los Angeles Chargers place kicker Cameron Dicker (11) celebrates with teammates after kicking a field goal during the first half of an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Los Angeles Chargers wide receiver Ladd McConkey (15) is congratulated by Scott Matlock (44) after scoring on a two point conversion during the first half of an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Los Angeles Chargers linebacker Daiyan Henley (0) celebrates with teammates after intercepting a pass against the Las Vegas Raiders during the first half of an NFL football game in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert (10) celebrates with head coach Jim Harbaugh during the second half of an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert (10) runs against Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Charles Snowden (49) during the second half of an NFL football game in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
They had some early red-zone troubles, but behind Herbert's 346 yards passing and two touchdowns, the Chargers secured that No. 5 seed with a 34-20 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Chargers (11-6) closed the regular season with a three-game winning streak under first-year coach Jim Harbaugh and will visit the fourth-seeded Houston Texans (10-7) on Saturday.
Had they lost, they would have faced Baltimore in the latest edition of the Harbaugh Bowl. John Harbaugh coaches the Ravens and has never lost to his younger brother.
“I'm very proud of the way the team played, starting with the quarterback,” Jim Harbaugh said. “I'm not going to say unbelievable because I believe it and I see it every day. But there were throws that he was making ... that were like handoffs. They were right where you would put it if you were handing the ball off on a running play. Just incredible game by him.”
Las Vegas, which had won back-to-back games, finished 4-13 with coach Antonio Pierce on the hot seat. Pierce twice said “no comment” when asked about his future.
This was the Chargers' first victory at Las Vegas since 2020 and their first season sweep of their AFC West rival since 2018. That also was the last time the Chargers won at least 11 games.
Herbert showed off his arm and legs, taking off for a 41-yard run in the third quarter to set up a 2-yard touchdown pass to Will Dissly for a 27-13 lead.
His top target was Quentin Johnston, the second-year pro who set career highs with 13 receptions for 186 yards. Johnston had been criticized for dropping a key pass in a 30-23 loss to the Ravens on Nov. 25.
“He's playing the right football at the right time,” Herbert said. “He's confident. He's having fun. You can tell. He's feeling it, and whenever he's doing that, you've got to get him the ball no matter how it is.”
Ladd McConkey caught five passes for 95 yards, his 10th consecutive game with at least 50 yards to break the rookie record that Odell Beckham Jr. set in 2014. His 82 receptions for 1,149 yards are Chargers rookie records.
J.K. Dobbins rushed for 63 yards to finish with 905 on the season.
Aidan O'Connell passed for 214 yards and two touchdowns for the Raiders, and Jakobi Meyers caught nine passes for 123 yards and a TD. Meyers topped 1,000 yards for the first time in his six-year career, becoming the 11th undrafted free agent to accomplish that.
Brock Bowers had four catches for 50 yards and a touchdown to finish the season with 1,194 yards, falling just short of becoming the ninth tight end with 1,200 in a season.
The Chargers outgained the Raiders 473 yards to 264, but failed to score touchdowns on three of their first four trips to the red zone to keep the game close. Las Vegas led most of the first half and appeared set to take a 10-9 lead into halftime.
But O'Connell's dump-off pass to running back Alexander Mattison was intercepted by Chargers linebacker Daiyan Henley to give Los Angeles possession at the Raiders 30-yard line. That set up Herbert's 6-yard TD pass to DJ Chark and 2-point pass to McConkey for a 17-10 lead with 10 seconds left.
The Chargers never trailed again.
“When we got that pick, it sent a surge of energy because it was a little down going into that drive,” Henley said. “And then you see Justin Herbert, what he does when that ball is in his hands.”
This was quite a different feeling for the Chargers the last time they were at Allegiant Stadium. Las Vegas had its way with a 63-21 victory that led to the firings of coach Brandon Staley and general manager Tom Telesco the next day.
Now LA is preparing for the playoffs while the Raiders — where Telesco is now GM — get ready for an offseason of major questions, beginning with whether Pierce is given another shot.
“I really like AP as a coach,” Bowers said. “We'll see what happens. It's up to certain people and not us. But I really liked playing for him and I thought he was a great coach.”
Chargers: RB Gus Edwards (ankle) and WR Josh Palmer (foot) did not play, and T Rashawn Slater (knee) was scratched after what was described by the team as discomfort in pregame stretches. G Trey Pipkins (oblique) left early in the third quarter.
Raiders: RB Ameer Abdullah (foot) and CB Nate Hobbs (illness) did not play.
Chargers: At AFC South champion Houston on Saturday. This is their first playoff appearance since 2022 and second since 2018.
Raiders: In addition to Pierce, they must decide whether to stick with O'Connell or make a change at quarterback.
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Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Jakobi Meyers, middle left, is congratulated by tight end Brock Bowers after scoring against the Los Angeles Chargers during the first half of an NFL football game in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Las Vegas Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce reacts during the first half of an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Chargers in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh, left, walks on the sideline during the first half of an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Los Angeles Chargers wide receiver DJ Chark Jr. (9) celebrates after scoring against the Las Vegas Raiders during the first half of an NFL football game in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Las Vegas Raiders tight end Michael Mayer (87) is tackled by Los Angeles Chargers cornerback Cam Hart (20) during the first half of an NFL football game in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Los Angeles Chargers place kicker Cameron Dicker (11) celebrates with teammates after kicking a field goal during the first half of an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Los Angeles Chargers wide receiver Ladd McConkey (15) is congratulated by Scott Matlock (44) after scoring on a two point conversion during the first half of an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Los Angeles Chargers linebacker Daiyan Henley (0) celebrates with teammates after intercepting a pass against the Las Vegas Raiders during the first half of an NFL football game in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert (10) celebrates with head coach Jim Harbaugh during the second half of an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert (10) runs against Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Charles Snowden (49) during the second half of an NFL football game in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
ROME (AP) — The Ukrainian soldiers clambered from the ruined house at gunpoint — one with arms raised in surrender to the Russian troops — and lay face-down in the early spring grass.
Two drones — one Ukrainian and one Russian — recorded the scene from high above the southern Ukrainian village of Piatykhatky. The Associated Press managed to get both videos. They offer very different versions of what happened next.
The Ukrainian drone video, which AP obtained from European military officials, shows soldiers with Russian uniform markings raising their weapons and shooting each of the four Ukrainians in the back with such ferocity that one man was left without a head.
“Out of all the executions that we’ve seen since late 2023, it’s one of the clearest cases,” said Rollo Collins of the Center for Information Resilience, a London group that specializes in visual investigations and reviewed the video at AP’s request. “This is not a typical combat killing. This is an illegal action.”
The Russian drone video, which AP located on pro-Kremlin social media, cuts off abruptly with the men lying on the ground — alive. “As a result of the work done by our guys, the enemy decided not to be killed and came out with their hands up,” wrote a Russian military blogger who posted the video.
Two videos. Two stories. In one, the prisoners appear to live. In the other, they die.
As evidence of potential war crimes continues to mount, many in Ukraine worry that the Trump administration’s about-face on the war will make it more difficult to establish a firm historical narrative about what has happened since Russia’s 2022 invasion and whether those most responsible for atrocities will ever be held accountable.
On March 13, the day European officials say the incident in Piatykhatky took place, U.S. representatives landed in Russia for ceasefire talks with President Vladimir Putin.
President Donald Trump, who has signaled that a prospective deal could see Ukraine surrender some territory and echoed Moscow’s talking points, called for a quick peace deal. His administration has pulled back support for Ukraine, including war crimes investigations, and is rebuilding relations with Putin — the very man many victims and prosecutors want to see in court.
“Whatever a peace agreement would be, Ukraine is not ready to forgive everything which happened in our territory,” Yurii Bielousov, head of the war crimes department for Ukraine’s prosecutor general, told AP. “In which form there will be accountability, that we don’t know at the moment.”
The killing of surrendering POWs in the Ukrainian video — a crime under international law — was not unique, according to Ukrainian prosecutors, international human rights officials and open-source analysts.
At least 245 Ukrainian POWs have been killed by Russian forces since the full-scale invasion, according to Ukrainian prosecutors. They allege it’s part of a deliberate strategy encouraged by Russian officials.
“It’s definitely part of the policy, which is fully supported by the top leaders of the Russian Federation,” Bielousov told AP. “This isn’t the action of specific commanders. It is supported on the top level.”
Asked about Russia's treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia treats surrendering Ukrainian troops in accordance with international law and does not encourage the killing of POWs.
“This is not a policy of the Russian side,” he told AP, and repeated Moscow's claims that atrocities committed by its troops in the Ukrainian town of Bucha were faked.
In the occupation of that town outside Kyiv early in the war, hundreds of Ukrainians were killed. Overwhelming evidence, including witness testimony, photos, CCTV videos, phone intercepts and corpses of civilians, substantiated those deaths.
The drone video in Piatykhatky was taken by Ukraine’s 128th Mountain Brigade, according to military officials with a European country that Ukrainian authorities shared the video with. The AP obtained it on condition of anonymity because the officials were not authorized to release it.
Intense fighting has devastated this crossroads in the Zaporizhzhia region. Fresh scorch marks stain the grass and what houses remain are missing roofs and windows. The battle has been part of a scramble to seize territory ahead of peace talks, with Russia seeking a strategic foothold to force Ukraine to restructure its logistics lines, according to military analysts.
Russian soldiers planted their flag amid the ruins of Piatykhatky last month, according to a drone video posted March 11 by pro-Kremlin bloggers.
Two days later, the Russian and Ukrainian drones recorded the surrender of the four Ukrainian soldiers about 100 meters (yards) away.
The Russian video shows an explosive drone flying in the window of the house where Ukrainians took cover, detonating with a flash.
Both countries' drones recorded one of the Ukrainians, arms raised and seemingly unarmed, leaving the shattered house. With a Russian soldier pointing his gun at him, the man plants himself spread-eagled next to his comrades on the ground.
European military officials who analyzed the video said the Russians are identifiable by red or white markings on their uniforms.
The Ukrainian video shows the Russians briefly searching their prisoners. Two more Russians arrive and consult with comrades. One pauses to use his radio.
What happens next was cut from the Russian video. One Russian walks to the prisoners, raises his gun with one hand and starts firing. Another soldier shoots, too. While he reloads, a third Russian joins in, firing at least two shots at close range that take off the helmet — and head — of one man. Then the soldier who’d been reloading finishes off the four Ukrainians, methodically shooting each, one by one.
Neither video shows how the first Ukrainian soldier got out of the house.
Ukraine’s 128th Mountain Brigade declined comment because the deaths are being investigated as a suspected war crime. Ukraine’s internal security agency confirmed to AP it has opened an investigation.
Russian military bloggers who posted the edited video said it shows the work of an assault unit from Russia’s 247th Airborne Regiment.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comment on the incident.
Analysts at the Center for Information Resilience confirmed the videos were recorded by different drones, as well the location and identifying marks of the soldiers.
“For us, this is very much a quite clinical, methodical process of execution,” said Collins, the CIR analyst. “It follows on from a very consistent sort of trend that we’ve seen since at least December 2023.”
Russia also claims to have documented “systematic killings” of Russian POWs by Ukrainian troops but didn’t give overall numbers. In March, the Russian Foreign Ministry released testimony from Russian POWs exchanged by Ukraine who described beatings and torture in custody. Some reported “a practice of finishing off wounded Russian fighters, as well as executing combatants who have laid down their arms.”
The Investigative Committee, Russia’s top state criminal investigation agency, said in December it had opened over 5,700 criminal cases into alleged Ukrainian crimes since the start of the conflict.
The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has documented 91 extrajudicial killings of Ukrainian POWs since August 2024. During the same period, it found a single case of Ukrainian soldiers killing a Russian POW.
Bielousov, the Ukrainian war crimes prosecutor, said all such allegations against Ukrainian troops are being investigated.
Danielle Bell, head of the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said the increase in POW killings by Russian forces hasn't happened in a vacuum. Russia enacted laws shielding soldiers from prosecution, she said, and officials have called for the killing or torture of Ukrainian POWs and endorsed reported extrajudicial killings. Multiple videos of POW killings have appeared online, some posted by Russian soldiers themselves, she noted, suggesting an environment of broad impunity.
“Calls on social media by public officials, amnesty laws, dehumanizing language within the context of impunity for these acts — it’s contributing to an environment that allows such acts or these crimes to take place,” she said.
Extrajudicial killings are among over 157,000 potential war crimes Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating. Ukraine has relied on international support to help process that flood of information and structure complex cases for both international and domestic courts.
That work is suffering since the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid.
Among those hit was the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, which lost $5 million from cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development. It had been using the money to collect evidence of offenses ranging from property damage to sexual assaults. The nongovernmental organization has cut staff, reduced operations and moved out of its Kyiv offices, executive director Oleksandr Pavlichenko told AP.
U.S. funding to groups investigating atrocities in Cambodia and Syria helped build war crimes cases years later. It took over two decades to bring top leaders of the Khmer Rouge before a U.N.-backed court on war crimes charges stemming from their brutal rule in the 1970s that led to 1.7 million deaths. Prosecutors relied on archives of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, established with U.S. government funding.
If not for that center, “there would have been no Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Period,” said Christopher “Kip” Hale, a criminal law expert who worked at the tribunal and has worked in Ukraine.
“To have durable peace, we have to have accountability. We have to invest now,” he said. "Without it, we see that ceasefires and armistices are just waiting periods for the next conflict to start.”
Leicester reported from Paris and Dupuy reported from New York. Volodymyr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine; Molly Quell in The Hague, Netherlands; Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia; and Emma Burrows in London contributed.
This image taken from video that European military officials say was filmed by a Ukrainian drone in the southern Ukrainian village of Piatykhatky on March 13, 2025, shows three soldiers with red helmets and uniform markings identified as Russian surrounding four Ukrainian soldiers who appear to have surrendered and are laying on the ground. (Ukraine Military/European Defense Officials via AP)
This image taken from video that European military officials say was filmed by a Ukrainian drone in the southern Ukrainian village of Piatykhatky on March 13, 2025, shows a soldier, left, identified as Russian, pointing his gun at a Ukrainian soldier who appears to be surrendering after emerging from the ruins of a house to join other Ukrainian prisoners on the ground. (Ukraine Military/European Defense Officials via AP)
This image taken from video that European military officials say was filmed by a Ukrainian drone in the southern Ukrainian village of Piatykhatky on March 13, 2025, shows a soldier, center, identified as Russian, pointing his gun at a Ukrainian soldier who appears to be surrendering after emerging from the ruins of a house to join other Ukrainian prisoners on the ground. (Ukraine Military/European Defense Officials via AP)
This image taken from video that European military officials say was filmed by a Ukrainian drone in the southern Ukrainian village of Piatykhatky on March 13, 2025, shows three soldiers with red helmets and uniform markings identified as Russian surrounding four Ukrainian soldiers who appear to have surrendered and are laying on the ground. (Ukraine Military/European Defense Officials via AP)
This image taken from video that European military officials say was filmed by a Ukrainian drone in the southern Ukrainian village of Piatykhatky on March 13, 2025, shows a soldier, left, identified as Russian, pointing his gun at four Ukrainian soldiers on the ground who appear to have surrendered. (Ukraine Military/European Defense Officials via AP)
This image taken from video that European military officials say was filmed by a Ukrainian drone in the southern Ukrainian village of Piatykhatky on March 13, 2025, shows a soldier, left, identified as Russian, pointing his gun at a Ukrainian soldier who appears to be surrendering after emerging from the ruins of a house to join other Ukrainian prisoners on the ground. (Ukraine Military/European Defense Officials via AP)
