Russian forces are trying to “sow panic” ahead of a planned Ukrainian counteroffensive by circulating brutal footage of a Ukrainian prisoner of war having his head cut off, Ukrainian authorities said Wednesday.
Pro-Russian Telegram channels began circulating two separate videos this week that appear to document war crimes, one of which purportedly shows Russian troops chopping a prisoner’s head off and relishing in the aftermath. The victim is clearly still alive as the gruesome execution begins.
“It hurts, stop,” he appears to say before falling silent.
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Off-camera, men purported to be Russian troops can be heard cheering on the executioner, yelling, “We’re working, brothers, we’re fucking working! Fucking cut it, break the spine! What, have you never cut off heads before?”
Another man then suggests putting the decapitated head in a sack and “sending it to the commander.”
The video, thought to have been filmed over the summer, was spread by the Telegram channel of Vladislav Pozdyankov, the founder of a Russian misogynistic hate group called the “Male State.”
But Pozdyankov, who directed the footage at Russian figures who oppose using more brutal methods on the battlefield, said he’d pulled the video from another social media channel and that it was not his.
The chilling video followed similar footage shared by pro-Russian channels over the weekend that showed the beheaded bodies of two Ukrainian soldiers. In that video, purportedly filmed by members of Russia’s notorious Wagner group near Bakhmut, a man disguising his voice can be heard laughing about how someone had “cut their heads off” along with their hands.
In a statement to The Daily Beast, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, said he had watched the video.
“It’s bad when people get their heads cut off, but I didn’t find anywhere that this is happening near Bakhmut or that Wagner fighters are taking part in the execution,” he said.
Separately, Russian social media channels shared a picture of a skull stuck on a spike that was said to be the “remains of a Ukrainian soldier” in Bakhmut.
While Russia’s pro-war military bloggers celebrated the gruesome videos and cheered on the executioners, the Kremlin, predictably, suggested they might be fake.
“Did this really happen, and if so, where and by which side?” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday, adding that “in a world of fakes in which we live, it is necessary to check the authenticity of this footage.”
Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, have vowed to track down the executioners and said the videos were an attempt to demoralize Ukraine’s troops.
“The purpose of such a policy, in particular, is an attempt to demoralize and sow panic in the Ukrainian Defense Forces, which will not succeed,” Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the main intelligence directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, said in televised comments Wednesday.
He went on to say the videos were also intended to “intimidate” Russia’s own soldiers.
“As in, don’t you even think about surrendering, because in Ukrainian captivity, they will do to you what we do to Ukrainian prisoners.”
The volunteer research group InformNapalm said the beheadings may have another purpose entirely: as “kompromat” to be used against any would-be defectors.
“Russian commanders… give orders to their subordinates to cut off heads or torture, while they themselves film everything on a phone as evidence… so that their subordinates understand that there is no turning back for them,” the group said in a statement.
“That is, this content is not for us and not for the West, but for an internal audience,” the group said, to be leaked on the internet as revenge when a soldier flees the war or betrays the Russian side.
“And yes, there are many more such videos.”
