On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented on recently-surfaced videos allegedly showing the beheading of Ukrainian soldiers by Russian soldiers: "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".
Zelenskyy asked the International Criminal Court to investigate.
The videos were circulated on social media and graphically show Ukrainian service members being beheaded while still alive.
"It's absurd that Russia, which is worse than ISIS, is presiding over the UNSC [United Nations Security Council]," Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's foreign minister, said. "Russian terrorists must be kicked out of Ukraine and the UN and be held accountable for their crimes."
Russian spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told press: "Of course, these are terrible shots."   He continued: "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." 
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres was "horrified" by the videos, according to a spokesperson, and said those responsible must be held accountable.
The Institute for the Study of War said on Monday the Wagner Group, a private military company run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, was "continuing to commit war crimes by beheading Ukrainian servicemen in Bakhmut". It also claimed there have been similar incidents during the conflict.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!
Share this: 






This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Ukraine decries videoed beheadings as committed by Russian 'beasts'