Kyiv, Ukraine
Reuters
Ukraine compared Russia on Wednesday to Islamic State and called on the International Criminal Court to investigate after a video emerged online showing apparent Russian soldiers filming themselves beheading a Ukrainian captive with a knife.
Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity or provenance of the video on social media, which showed a man in uniform beheading a man who wears the yellow arm band used by Ukrainian soldiers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks at the Royal Castle as he visits Warsaw, Poland, on 5th April, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Aleksandra Szmigiel/File photo.
The Kremlin described the video as “awful” but said its authenticity needed to be checked. Moscow has denied in the past that its troops carry out atrocities during the conflict.
“There is something that no one in the world can ignore: how easily these beasts kill,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video message.
“There will be legal responsibility for everything. The defeat of terror is necessary.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba 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,” he said, referring to the UN Security Council, where Russia took up the rotating presidency this month.
“Russian terrorists must be kicked out of Ukraine and the UN and be held accountable for their crimes.”
Militants from Islamic State in Iraq and Syria were notorious for releasing videos of beheadings of captives when they controlled swathes of those countries from 2014-2017.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters at a briefing: “First of all, in the world of fakes that we live in, we need to check the veracity of this footage.”
“Then it could be a pretext to check whether or not this is true, whether it happened, and if it did, where and by whom,” Peskov said.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry called on the International Criminal Court to “immediately investigate yet another atrocity of the Russian military”.
Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar told people online not to name the soldier publicly until his identity has been officially established by law enforcement. She urged people to stop sharing the video online.
“Remember, the enemy wants to frighten us. Wants to make us weaker,” he said.
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Ukraine’s domestic security agency said it had started an investigation into a suspected war crime over the video.
“Yesterday, a video appeared on the Internet showing how the Russian occupiers are showing their beastly nature – cruelly torturing a Ukrainian prisoner and cutting off his head,” the SBU agency wrote on Telegram.
In Geneva, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said it was appalled by what it called “particularly gruesome” videos posted on social media.
As well as the purported execution, another video shows mutilated bodies of apparent Ukrainian prisoners of war, it said.
“Regrettably, this is not an isolated incident,” it said in a statement. “The latest incidents must also be properly investigated and the perpetrators must be held accountable.”
Ukrainian service members ride a tank, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, near the front line city of Bakhmut, Ukraine, on 10th April, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Oleksandr Klymenko/File photo
Meanwhile, Ukraine and Russia traded barbs on Wednesday over how much Kremlin’s forces control the city of Bakhmut, for months the focal point of Moscow’s bid to advance through eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s military said it controlled “considerably” more than 20 per cent of the city. The claim by Russian entrepreneur Yevgeny Prigozhin that his Wagner mercenary group had seized more than 80 per cent of Bakhmut was untrue, it said.
Russia’s Defence Ministry retorted that Wagner forces had captured three city blocks. And Russian forces, it said, had struck Ukrainian army reserves trying to break through.
After pulling back from an attempted advance on Kyiv last year in what Moscow calls a “special military operation”, Russia’s military has focused mainly on capturing Bakhmut as a stepping stone to advancing on cities further west in Donetsk region.
But its gains have been largely incremental over many months. Prigozhin has made a number of premature announcements in connection with Wagner’s position in Bakhmut.
Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern military command, dismissed Prigozhin’s latest 80 per cent claim in a comment to Reuters.
“I was just in touch with the commander of one of the brigades holding the defence of the city. And I can confidently say that Ukrainian defensive forces control a considerably larger percent of Bakhmut’s territory,” he said.
Analyst Konrad Muzyka, director of the Rochan military consultancy in Poland, said his calculations bore out the Russian claim of 80%. “The big question is whether the current Russian tempo can be maintained,” he said on Twitter.
Ukrainian forces have hung on for months in Bakhmut, where the fiercest fighting of Moscow’s full-scale February 2022 invasion has killed thousands of soldiers and been dubbed the “meat-grinder”.
Prigozhin said on Tuesday his forces controlled most of Bakhmut, including the administrative centre, factories, warehouses and municipal buildings.
“Prigozhin needs to show at least some kind of victory in the city, which they have been trying to capture for nine months in a row and that’s why he’s making such statements,” said Cherevatyi.
Ukrainian service members ride tanks, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, near the front line city of Chasiv Yar, Ukraine, on 10th April, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Oleksandr Klymenko
Repelling Russian attacks
The general staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said there was no letup in Russian attempts to seize the city, with Ukrainian troops repelling nearly 18 attacks. Russian forces, it said, had tried unsuccessfully to move on two villages to the northwest.
The general staff report said Ukrainian forces also beat back 14 attacks on the hotly contested town of Maryinka further south, near the major coke-producing city of Avdiivka.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised the efforts of forces defending Bakhmut and other areas in the east, but made no specific reference to the situation in the town.
Addressing a meeting of international financial institutions pledged to maintain Ukraine’s financial stability, Zelenskiy called for faster assistance with a view to rebuilding the country and restoring normal life after the Russian invasion.
“There will be no ruins in Ukraine,” he said in his nightly video address after the meeting. “That is our aim. It will be concrete proof of the complete defeat of the terrorist state.”
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said approval of a law introducing electronic draft papers for the first time would help resolve a “mess” that ensued after a call-up of 300,000 conscripts last year to bolster its forces.
“That is exactly the purpose of this legislative initiative: to clear up this mess and to make [the system] modern, effective and convenient for citizens.”
