Video footage emerged last week on pro-war Russian Telegram channels showing what appears to be a Ukrainian prisoner of war being beheaded by a Russian soldier.
The 90-second clip shows a man dressed in green fatigues and wearing a yellow armband typical of the Ukrainian army being pinned down by what appears to be a Russian soldier, per Yahoo News.
The victim screams as he is beheaded by his attacker with a knife.
A voice in Russian can be heard in the background, urging the attacker to finish the job.
“Break his spine. Haven’t you cut heads off before? Finish the job,” the voice reportedly continues, per The Moscow Times.
While the footage has not been geolocated, online speculation suggests that it was filmed near the city of Kreminna in eastern Ukraine last summer.
While Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded to the footage on April 12 by calling it “horrible,” he also said that it needed to be verified, per AP News.
A statement from Russia’s general prosecutor’s office announced the following day that it had launched an investigation into the video.
“In order to assess the credibility of these materials and make an appropriate decision, they have been forwarded to the investigative authorities for verification,” it read, per Al Jazeera.
The security services of Ukraine have also launched a probe into the video.
It has yet to be independently authenticated.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed outrage over the video in a news release, calling it another example of “Russian terror.”
“This is not an accident. This is not an episode. This was the case earlier. This was the case in Bucha. Thousands of times,” Zelenskyy said.
He also promised that “there will be legal responsibility for everything.”
Bucha is a suburb of Kyiv where at least 20 bodies of Ukrainian civilians were allegedly found in April last year, as The Dallas Express previously reported.
Ukrainian authorities have levied many accusations of war crimes against Russian troops since the conflict began last February.
For instance, another video emerged on the same pro-Russian Telegram channels on April 8, allegedly recorded by members of the Russian Wagner Group of mercenaries, per CNN.
The video allegedly depicts the bodies of two Ukrainian soldiers who have been beheaded and their hands apparently cut off. They are lying next to a damaged Ukrainian M-113 military vehicle. The location has not been confirmed, but it is believed to be near Bakhmut, where the battle has been raging for months.
Ukraine is about to launch a major offensive with the aim of reclaiming lands to the south and reaching the border of Crimea, as The Dallas Express recently reported.
It has been speculated by both sides how the recent footage might affect morale.
Ukrainian politician and Zelenskyy advisor Mykhailo Podolyak suggested that the release aimed to “demoralize the public mood or at least change the psychological perception of the war right now,” per AP News.
On the other hand, Russian state TV journalist Andrei Medvedev called it “fairly opportune” for the Ukrainian army, saying it could help “fire up personnel ideologically,” per AP News.
