The video lasts one minute and forty seconds and the images are hardly sustainable. In these, a man in camouflage, his face masked, slits the neck of another man in uniform struggling on the ground, yelling “it hurts”.
After a few seconds, the screaming stops and a man is heard behind the camera urging the executioner in Russian to “cut off the head” of the victim. The latter finishes his decapitation with a knife, and shows the severed head to the camera. “Get it in the bag and send it to the commander,” said a voice in Russian. On camera, the victim’s vest is also shown crossed out with the Ukrainian trident and a skull and crossbones.
On Wednesday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) was unable to immediately verify the authenticity of the video, or where and when it may have been filmed. The Ukrainian authorities have indicated that they are seeking to identify the victim. Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar said on Telegram that authorities are doing “everything [their] possible to identify the deceased”.
In a video posted on Instagram, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the video represented “Russia as it is” and “the world needs to see it”. He also called the Russians “monsters” who “kill easily”.
A publication shared by Volodymyr Zelensky (@zelenskiy_official)
“It’s not an episode. It’s not an accident. It was (already) like that in Boutcha. Thousands of times,” he continued, referring to the Kiev suburbs that have become a symbol of atrocities attributed to the Russian military since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Same story from the side of the human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, which said it was “horrified” and lamented that this was “unfortunately not an isolated incident”. She demanded that these cases be investigated and their perpetrators brought to justice. The UN representation mentioned a second video showing the mutilated bodies of Ukrainian prisoners.
Still on the Ukrainian side, the head of diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba considered that Russia was “worse than the Islamic State”, a jihadist organization which filmed the executions of its hostages, in particular by beheading. “Russian terrorists must be kicked out of Ukraine and the UN and held accountable for their crimes,” he said on Twitter.
A horrific video of Russian troops decapitating a Ukrainian prisoner of war is circulating online. It’s absurd that Russia, which is worse than ISIS, is presiding over the UNSC. Russian terrorists must be kicked out of Ukraine and the UN and be held accountable for their crimes.
The European Union has declared that it will hold “all perpetrators and accomplices of war crimes to account” in Ukraine, according to a spokeswoman for the head of European diplomacy. On the French side, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “learned with horror” of the video and on Wednesday condemned “a barbaric act” and “an unbearable attack on human dignity”.
“Those responsible for all crimes committed in Ukraine will be held to account,” the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman added during her email briefing.
On the Russian side, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov also called the images “horrible” but questioned their veracity. “In the world of fakes we live in, we have to make sure the authenticity of this video,” he added. Usually, Russian officials limit themselves to denying any involvement of Russian soldiers in war crimes, and accuse Ukraine of orchestrating the scenes.
Russia also denies, despite corroborating evidence, the summary executions of civilians, in particular in Boutcha, near Kiev, a year ago. Bodies of killed civilians had been discovered in the city. On April 2, 2022, AFP journalists saw the bodies of twenty men in civilian clothes in Boutcha, one of whom had his hands tied behind his back, in addition to charred carcasses of vehicles and destroyed houses.
These scenes had shocked the whole world, kyiv and Westerners repeatedly denouncing summary executions of civilians and war crimes. Moscow has repeatedly denied any involvement and referred to a “staging” of Ukraine and its allies.
In November, the Kremlin was outraged by two videos appearing to show the alleged execution of a dozen Russian soldiers by bullets after they had surrendered to Ukrainian forces. In late March, the UN accused Ukrainian and Russian forces of committing summary executions of prisoners of war.
