Moscow/kyiv (EFE) .- The dissemination of a video in which an alleged Russian soldier beheads a Ukrainian prisoner of war has opened a new front in the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.
While President Volodimir Zelensky has called on the international community to act urgently, the Kremlin has warned that the video must be “verified”
“It is something that no one in the world can ignore: the ease with which these beasts kill,” Zelenski said in a video recorded from the presidential office in which he affirms that it is not an isolated case, but rather “the new normal ” that Russia would try to impose.
For his part, the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov, assured in his daily press conference that “to begin with, we must verify the veracity of the images.”
Peskov has admitted that these are “terrible” images, but has insisted on the need to study their authenticity: “this may give reason to investigate whether it actually happened, and if so, who did it and where”.
The Security Service of Ukraine opens an investigation
A video found on Russian social networks by the US television network CNN allegedly shows the beheading of a live Ukrainian soldier at the hands of a Russian military.
The video would have been recorded last summer and the Ukrainian secret service is studying them “frame by frame to identify the criminals”.
“It has happened before. It has happened before in Bucha. Thousands of times,” Zelensky added, referring to the town around kyiv where hundreds of Ukrainian civilians were killed during the Russian occupation.
Zelensky asked “each one of the leaders” of the international community to react with measures that contribute to “defeating the terror” that in his opinion Russia represents.
“No one would understand that the leaders do not react,” added the Ukrainian president, who called for the creation of a special court to judge these Russian atrocities.
a second video
The recording of the beheading has been published by the advisor to the Ukrainian presidential office Mikhailo Podoliak, along with a message in which he condemns Russia’s “lust for blood” and addresses those who ask Ukraine to exchange territories for peace.
“Maybe the pacifists who cynically suggest ‘trading territories for peace’ will finally understand what ‘Russian world’ means,” Podoliak wrote, using the Russian expression for countries over which Moscow has exerted influence. .
In the video, which has a blurred image, the throat can be seen and the victim’s screams of terror can be heard.
CNN has also found a second, more recent video in which alleged mercenaries from the Wagner group cut the throats of two Ukrainian soldiers killed in an explosion.