Ukraine has compared Russia to the Islamic State after a video appeared on the Internet showing Russian soldiers beheading a Ukrainian prisoner with a knife, Reuters reports.
A video shared on social media shows a man in uniform beheading another man wearing the yellow armband used by Ukrainian soldiers.
Moscow has so far made no official comment, but in the past it has repeatedly denied that its servicemen committed atrocities during the war. “There is something that no one in the world can ignore – how easily these beasts kill,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address.
“There will be legal responsibility for everything. The defeat of terror is necessary,” he categorically stated.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted: “Horrifying video of Russian soldiers beheading Ukrainian POW is circulating online.”
It is absurd for Russia, which is worse than Islamic State, to chair the UN Security Council, he stressed, referring to Moscow’s assumption of the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council earlier this month. “Russian terrorists must be expelled from Ukraine and from the UN and be held accountable for their crimes,” he categorically stated.
Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria became notorious for circulating videos of beheading prisoners while they controlled parts of those countries from 2014-2017.
Ukraine’s Internal Security Service said it had opened an investigation into an alleged war crime in connection with the video.
“Yesterday, a video appeared on the Internet showing how the Russian occupiers show their brutal nature – they brutally torture a Ukrainian prisoner and cut off his head,” the service in “Telegram” reported.
