Russian troops have brutally beheaded captive Ukrainian soldiers and posted videos on social media.
The chilling two videos show Ukrainian soldiers with cut-off heads and hands.
In the video posted Tuesday on Twitter, a Russian soldier used a knife to cut off the head of an unarmed Ukrainian soldier.
“Video going around of russians decapitating a captive Ukrainian soldier with a knife. Extremely sick, barbaric war crime. russia is a terrorist state,” the Senior Advisor to the U.S. Congress Paul Massaro said.
Paul Massaro also noted that this is the true face of russia.
“Putin is not forcing this terrorist to decapitate a captured Ukrainian soldier. We must defeat and isolate this evil,” the message added.
Make no mistake: this is the true face of russia. Putin is not forcing this terrorist to decapitate a captured Ukrainian solider. We must defeat and isolate this evil https://t.co/VbFVPl1wiU
— Paul Massaro (@apmassaro3) April 11, 2023
The second video, on April 8, was purportedly filmed by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group and appears to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian soldiers lying on the ground next to a destroyed military vehicle.
In the video, a voice can be heard, behind the camera, the sound seemingly distorted to prevent the speaker’s identification.
“(The armored vehicle) got f**ked by a mine,” the voice, speaking Russian, says.
Apparently referring to the bodies on the ground, the voice, laughing, continues, “They killed them. Someone came up to them. They came up to them and cut their heads off.”
Andriy Yermak, a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, tweeted, “There will be an accountability for everything.” An official Ukrainian government Telegram channel said the tweet was a direct reference to “another execution video published by Russians.”
Russia’s military has a culture of brutality and scorn for the laws of armed conflict that has been extensively documented in the past.
“The history of Russia’s military interventions – be it in Ukraine or Syria, or its military campaign at home in Chechnya – is tainted with blatant disregard for international humanitarian law,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
“The Russian military repeatedly flouted the laws of war by failing to protect civilians and even attacking them directly. Russian forces have launched indiscriminate attacks, used banned weapons and sometimes apparently deliberately targeted civilians and civilian objects – a war crime.”