Ukraine appeals to UN and Red Cross over alleged video of beheaded Ukrainian soldier

Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on August 16 that he had contacted the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) about a video released by Russian troops that allegedly showed the head of a beheaded Ukrainian soldier.

The video surfaced on social media earlier this week and shows a man in Russian military uniform with his face covered and what appears to be a severed head stuck on a stake in the background.

The authenticity of the video could not be immediately verified.

An unnamed Ukrainska Pravda source said that Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office is still investigating the footage. The newspaper also claimed it had obtained an intercepted audio recording of a Russian soldier ordering the beheading of four dead Ukrainian soldiers. Ukrainska Pravda did not publish the recording.

“(Russia) uses such videos to intimidate and demoralize Ukrainians. However, this only strengthens our desire to bring everyone who commits such inhuman atrocities to justice!” Lubinets said on his Telegram channel.

The Ombudsman described this as “another violation of international humanitarian law by Russia.”

DeepState, a Ukrainian crowdsourced surveillance site, claimed the video was shot at the Kolotilovka border checkpoint in Russia's Belgorod Oblast following an unsuccessful Ukrainian attack on August 12.

Ukraine's cross-border incursions have continued since August 6, with their focus on Kursk Oblast, but hostilities have also been reported from neighboring Belgorod Oblast.

Kolotilovka is located on the Russian side of the Russian-Ukrainian border crossing, about 40 kilometers east of Sumy in Ukraine, 80 kilometers west of Belgorod in Russia and 15 kilometers south of the administrative border with Kursk Oblast.

The perpetrators were soldiers from Russia's 155th Marine Infantry Brigade, which suffered heavy losses in Ukraine and had to replenish its ranks with mobilized conscripts, DeepState said.

The Kyiv Independent could not immediately confirm the claims.

A similar case came to light in June after images of the severed head of a Ukrainian soldier on an armored vehicle appeared on the Internet.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said at the time that he had received information that Russian commanders had given orders “not to take Ukrainian soldiers prisoner, but to kill them with inhuman cruelty – by beheading.”

In 2023, alleged photographs of several beheaded Ukrainian prisoners of war also emerged.