(CNN) — Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has called those who allegedly beheaded Ukrainian soldiers shown in two videos that appeared on social media last week “beasts.”
The videos seem to correspond to different events: one of them may have been filmed very recently, while the other, from the amount of foliage visible on the ground, appears to have been filmed during the boreal summer.
The first video, posted on a pro-Russian social network on April 8, was allegedly recorded by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group and appears to show the headless corpses of two Ukrainian soldiers lying on the ground next to a destroyed military vehicle.
A voice is heard in the video, behind the camera, with the sound apparently distorted to prevent identification of the speaker.
“[El vehículo blindado] was destroyed by a mine,” says the voice, speaking in Russian.
Apparently referring to the bodies on the ground, the voice, laughing, continues: “They were killed. Someone accosted them. They caught up with them and cut off their heads.”
Dead soldiers also appear to have had their hands cut off.
On Russian social networks it is said that the video was recorded near Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, the scene of the fiercest fighting of the war for many months, in which Wagner’s mercenaries are heavily involved. CNN cannot independently confirm the location of the video.
The second video, posted on Twitter and looking too blurry, appears to have been shot during the summer due to the amount of foliage on the ground. It shows a Russian fighter using a knife to cut off the head of a Ukrainian soldier. A voice at the beginning of the video suggests that the victim may have been alive when the attack began.
Zelensky promised that those responsible for the alleged atrocities would be held accountable. “There is something that no one in the world can ignore: how easily these beasts kill!” he said in a video message.
“We are not going to forget anything. We are not going to forgive the murderers either. There will be legal responsibilities for everything. The defeat of terror is necessary,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that the video was “terrible” but “first of all, we have to verify the authenticity” of the footage.
In his usual call with journalists, Peskov said: “Of course, these are terrible shots. So it can be a reason to check if it is true or not, if it took place and, if so, where and from which side.”
This Monday, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW, for its acronym in English) stated that, apparently, the Wagner group “continued to commit war crimes by beheading Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut”, referring to a photo shared on pro-Russian social networks showing what appeared to be a severed head, which they claimed belonged to a Ukrainian soldier, mounted on a pike.
The ISW has reported similar incidents in Popasna, in the Luhansk region, where Wagner’s troops were also operating early in the war.
Some pro-Russian social media accounts have suggested that Ukrainian forces were responsible for the beheadings in an effort to hide identification. This echoes a similar claim made by Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in January, after his fighters apparently found bodies with severed hands and heads near Bakhmut.
Dariia Zarivna, an adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said Wednesday that the videos are part of a psychological operation “aimed at intimidation.”
“It completely dehumanizes and demonstrates the essence of a terrorist country,” he said of the videos.
“But it is important to understand the purpose. This is a psychological operation aimed at intimidating. The target audience is not only Ukraine, but also Western societies,” he reasoned.
“However, it doesn’t work with us. The Russians fear it, but we don’t,” he added.
— CNN’s Anna Chernova contributed to this report.
