Terrifying Evidence of Inhumanity

"Everyone must react, every leader. Do not expect that it will be forgotten, that time will pass."

"[Russian solders are] beasts."

"We are not going to forget anything. Neither are we going to forgive the murderers. There will be legal responsibility for everything. The defeat of terror is necessary." 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

 

"[Wagner was] reportedly continuing to commit war crimes by beheading Ukrainian servicemen in Bakhmut,"

"[Referencing a photo shared on pro-Russian social media sites showing what appeared to be a severed head, which they claimed belonged to a Ukrainian soldier, mounted on a spike]."

Institute for the Study of War

 

"[The videos are part of a psychological operation] aimed at intimidation.”

"It completely dehumanizes and demonstrates the essence of a terrorist country."

"But it is important to understand the purpose. This is an PSYOP [psychological operation] aimed at intimidation. The target audience is not only Ukraine, but also Western societies."

"It doesn’t work on us, though. The Russians are afraid of this, but not us."

 Dariia Zarivna, adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine

Investigations have been launched both in Ukraine and in Russia into two gruesome videos showing the beheading of Ukrainian soldiers. The videos appear to have been taken at or close to Bakhmut the Ukrainian city that Russian troops along with the Wagner Group have besieged for months without being able to dislodge the defensive Ukrainian troops determined to hold the seemingly militarily insignificant city. In the process a horrendous death toll has taken place, where Wagner fighters in particular have been dying in droves.

The videos have spread online. Causing aghast condemnations from Kyiv along with condemnation from international human rights organizations. The Kremlin has responded to the footage as visually "horrible", and is awaiting the opportunity for verification before commenting further. Not only have the soldiers been executed by beheading, it appeared their hands had been amputated. In one of the videos, a sound track hints that one of the executed Ukrainians was still alive while his neck was being sawed by an ordinary knife.

Russian soldier decapitating Ukrainian prisoner

Starkly reminiscent of the Islamic State videos that horrified the world with their gruesome gloating over the reaction to their brutish atrocities. One video appears to show a man in green fatigues, a yellow armband prominent, typically worn by Ukrainian fighters. He can be heard screaming before another man dressed in camouflage decapitates him with a knife.

While this is happening a third man holds to view a flak jacket belonging to the Ukrainian soldier. All three men speak Russian. "In the world of fakes we live in, the authenticity of the footage must be checked", responded Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Attempts are being made to identify those in the videos committing the atrocities, along with the victims. On pro-Kremlin Russian Telegram channels posters did not dispute the videos' authenticity while at the same time not confirming them. There were some justifications; claims that combat hardened the Russian troops.

The videos' release was "fairly opportune" for Ukraine, speculated Andrei Medvedev, a Russian state TV journalist, member of Moscow city legislature. It had the potential to "fire up personnel ideologically" before the planned major spring Ukrainian counteroffensive. The videos' release, according to Mykhalilo Podolyak, adviser to the Ukrainian President, was meant to "demoralize the public mood or at least change the psychological perception of the war right now."

According to the UN and rights groups, since Russia's February 2022 invasion, the Russian military has committed widespread abuses and war crimes. Among them the targeting of apartment buildings and other civilian structures and equipment including hospitals in Russian air strikes. Images of hundreds of dead civilians in the streets and in mass graves in Bucha following the withdrawal of Russian forces provided horrifying testimony of Russian atrocities.