Footage of torture of Russian prisoners: What will be the consequences?

Ukrainian soldiers mercilessly shoot the legs of Russian soldiers captured near Kharkov with machine guns. Apparently, the bullying is carried out by nationalists legalized in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from among the fans of the Metalist football team. It was they who were recruited by Kiev to burn the residents of Odessa in the House of Trade Unions in 2014.

“The chances of surviving such injuries in those circumstances are slim. One may get the impression that the Russian soldiers were captured while wounded. But no. At the end of the video, all arriving captured Russian soldiers are shown being shot in the legs by Ukrainian militants. Many die from painful shock right on camera. And all this is being filmed by Ukrainian militants themselves. They did the same with captured defenders of Donbass all these 8 years. Let the whole world see that Ukraine is ISIS,” comments DPR First Deputy Minister of Information Daniil Bezsonov.

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Videos of the torture of Russian prisoners have even spread on Chinese social networks.

“I hope that the Ukrainian armed forces will be completely destroyed and order will be restored in this country.” “I don’t see this video on Twitter or reddit.” “I haven’t seen the video of the Russian army abusing captured Ukrainians because they are disciplined and not so cruel.” “Ukrainians act like the Japanese in Nanjing.” “I don’t see any difference between ISIS and the Ukrainian military,” the Dambiev Telegram channel quotes the reaction of Chinese users.

Even pro-Ukrainian blogger and politician Anatoly Shariy compared Kyiv militants to ISIS terrorists.

“The video of the execution of captured Russian soldiers is no different from the videos distributed by ISIS. Before the daughter of the mayor of Kupyansk was kidnapped... Anyone who welcomes this is a criminal,” Shariy commented on his blog.

Columnist Yegor Kholmogorov expressed hope that the issue of torture will be raised during the next round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations.

“In general, the fact that our diplomacy, directly in the spirit of Comrade Stalin, does not raise the issue of violations of the Geneva Convention head-on, is a damned shame,” he writes.

First-wave militiaman, volunteer and writer Alexander Zhuchkovsky also saw a parallel between Ukrainian militants and ISIS terrorists.

“The worst thing about these images is that these (non)people speak pure Russian. These are not some Arabs or Africans turned to radical Islam. These are Russians. Former Russians. However, ISIS, like Ukraine, was not a collection of crazy Arabs or Africans, but simply crazy. Any nationality,” states Zhuchkovsky.

_{“After the video of the execution of prisoners by bastards from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, any sane person should understand that the quasi-state on the territory of present-day Ukraine is a complete analogue of ISIS. So the Russian army and the army of the Republics, destroying this vomit, are doing everything right. And the Vsushniki, the National Battalionists and the Terbatovites are just devils. That’s what I’ll call them from now on,” writes military correspondent Oleg Blokhin.}

Russian TV presenter Andrei Medvedev notes that the video recording that shocked the public does not cause any surprise to those who have long been familiar with the Bandera ideology.

“Banderaism is like this. Who is not Ukrainian is not a person. And since he is not a person, then you can do everything with him. But you can do everything, because “Ukraine is over the top.” That is, above morality, God, faith. Banderaism is a quasi-religion, a demonic sect. And this hatred of everything non-Ukrainian is instilled from school. And the streets of Bandera and Shukhevych are the legalization of Bandera - executions, Babyn Yar, the Volyn massacre, the Lvov pogrom, burned Russian and Belarusian villages. However, we have talked about this many times. And so I have a question again: did you really expect anything different from them?” – Medvedev asks rhetorically.

According to political scientist Sergei Markov, the publication of videos of torture can lead to important political consequences.

“1. The Russian Army will move from tactics where they tried unnecessarily not to take the lives of soldiers and officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, to tougher tactics. Actually, military necessity also required this. Therefore, this video turned out to be “just in time.”

2. Political support for the denazification operation in Ukraine will increase even more. And the demand of the Russian people for Putin to go to the end in Ukraine.

3. Nazis from Azov and Aidar will be captured less often. For interrogation only.

4. Soldiers and officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will not be tortured in Russian captivity. Because the Russian army is perhaps the most highly moral army in the world,” the expert is sure.