Video of the beheading of a Ukrainian prisoner of war | Zelensky denounces Russian “beasts”

By Euronews in Spanish with AFP and EFE • last update: 04/12/2023 – 12:46

President Volodimir Zelensky lashed out at Russia this Wednesday, describing its soldiers as “beasts” after the publication on social networks of a video showing the beheading of an alleged Ukrainian prisoner of war.

“There is something that no one in the world can ignore: how easily these beasts kill. This video, the execution of a captive Ukrainian, the world must see. This video shows Russia for what it is. The kind of creatures they are. People do not exist for them: someone’s son, brother, husband, son. This is the video of Russia trying to make this a new norm. With the habit of destroying life,” he said in a video posted on Instagram the President of Ukraine.

“This is not an accident (…) It has happened before. It was like this in Bucha. Thousands of times,” he continued, referring to the Kiev suburb that has become a symbol of atrocities attributed to the Russian army. “Prison sentences for the murderers, a court for that demonic state,” added the president.

The head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba, denounced the “horrible video” saying that Russia is “worse than the Islamic State”, the jihadist organization that films the executions of its hostages, including beheading them.

What does Russia say about the video of the beheading of a Ukrainian prisoner of war?

The Kremlin affirmed this Wednesday that the video broadcast on social networks in which Russian soldiers are allegedly seen beheading a Ukrainian soldier must be “verified”.

“To begin with, you have to check the veracity of the images,” said the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov, at his daily press conference.

Peskov admitted that these are “terrible” images, but insisted on studying their authenticity.

“That may give reason to investigate whether it actually happened, and if so, who did it and where,” he added.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced today the opening of an investigation to identify the perpetrators of the decapitation with a knife, allegedly at the hands of a Russian military, of a living Ukrainian soldier seen on a video that would have been recorded last summer.

“Yesterday a video of the Russian occupiers appeared on a network that demonstrates their bestial nature, in which a Ukrainian prisoner whose head is cut off is brutally tortured,” says the Ukrainian secret service in an official note published in his Telegram channel.

The video of the beheading was circulating on Russian social networks and was discovered by the US television network CNN along with another similar, more recent recording in which the bodies of two beheaded Ukrainian soldiers can be seen.

Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski assured that the execution of the soldier is not “a coincidence or a separate episode.”

“They have already done it in the past, it is what they did in Bucha and thousands of other times. Everyone has to react (to that). All the leaders. And not expect it to be forgotten over time,” he said, quoted by the UNIAN agency

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