The video – first confirmed by the New York Times – shows a group of soldiers with Ukrainian patches and blue armbands on their way after a shootout. The bodies of at least four men in Russian uniforms lie on the sidewalk. Three of them have head wounds, and blood flows around the body of a fourth, who has a jacket over his head and appears to be scratching.
“He’s still alive,” said one man in Russian. He gasps.
A soldier points his rifle and fires two shots at his body, pauses, then fires another. The body stops moving.
A man speaking to the camera then turns to film a Russian infantry fighting vehicle marked “V”, similar to that seen on Russian military equipment operated by many units in Ukraine. “A small trophy,” says the man.
Someone outside the camera says, “Glory to Ukraine!” – Glory to Ukraine, patriotic greeting and a bearded man enters the frame and answers “Glory to the Heroes”, the standard answer.
The exact time and date of the video, which appeared on a pro-Russian channel in the Telegram, is unclear. The location of the video coincides with that of a video posted on Twitter by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. This video, released on April 2, shows an exploded Russian armored column. “He started working for Ukrainian defenders in the Kyiv region,” reads the inscription.
Another video of the scene, shot from a different angle, appeared on the Telegram channel of UNIAN, a Ukrainian news agency, on March 30th. It shows the same bearded man, and the caption says the video shows the Georgian Legion, a group of volunteers fighting on the Ukrainian side, in an operation to clear the Kyiv area of Russian troops.
The video of the alleged execution comes days after horrific photos surfaced of the apparent killing of Russian civilians by civilians in the Kiev suburb of Bucha.
Asked about the video at a NATO press conference in Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said: “I have not seen him. I heard about him. I want to assure you that the Ukrainian army is following the rules of war. “
Kuleba added: “There may be isolated cases of violations of these rules and they will definitely be investigated. But I wanted to check the date of this in this video again, because you have to understand one thing now (or) you will not understand I’m sorry, but you do not understand how it feels after seeing photos in Bucha. You talk to people who have fled, knowing that this person you know has been raped for four days in a row. And when she finally got to Kyiv, she was taken directly to a psychiatrist.
“This is not an excuse for those who violate the rules of war on both sides or on the front lines,” Kuleba continued. “But there are some things we just can’t figure out.”
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