Ukraine calls on the ICC Prosecutors Office to pay immediate attention to the execution of Ukrainian soldier

This statement was made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, as reported by Ukrinform.

"The army of the Russian Federation continues to commit horrible war crimes in Ukraine.

Ukraine is appalled by a horrific video, in which Russian troops are decapitating a Ukrainian prisoner of war. While posing on camera, Russian executioners take the life of a person with special cynicism," the agency emphasized.

The statement emphasized that this is not the first case of blatant inhumane treatment of Ukrainian prisoners by Russian troops. Thousands of cases have occurred in Bucha, Irpin,  Hostomel, Borodianka, Mariupol, and other Ukrainian towns and villages. The Ministry is convinced that the Russian Federation is deliberately implementing a policy of torture, physical abuse, inhuman treatment, intentional infliction of severe suffering, serious bodily harm, and intentional murder of both captured military personnel and civilians in Ukraine.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also noted that the killing of the Ukrainian prisoner, as captured on video, is a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions and constitutes a war crime under the provisions of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. According to the Rome Statute, such actions may also be qualified as a crime against humanity.

Therefore, the Ministry urges the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to immediately pay attention to another atrocity committed by the Russian military in the context of the investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russian citizens on the territory of Ukraine.

The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine stated that "all persons involved in the crimes in Ukraine, including the top leadership of the Russian Federation and the direct perpetrators, will be punished."

The ministry also called on the international community to take decisive and urgent measures to increase assistance to Ukraine for the purpose of protecting Ukrainians from Russian genocide and liberating all Ukrainian territories.

According to Ukrinform, two videos allegedly showing the beheading of Ukrainian defenders were posted online.

CNN reported that "The videos appear to be of separate events. One of them may have been filmed very recently, while the other — from the amount of foliage seen on the ground — looks like it was filmed during the summer."

The first video was posted to a pro-Russian social media channel on April 8. It was purportedly filmed by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group and appears to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian soldiers lying on the ground next to a destroyed military vehicle. It appears that both dead soldiers also had their hands cut off. Russian accounts claim that the video was filmed near Bakhmut.

The second video, which was posted on Twitter and is heavily blurred, looks to have been filmed during the summer because of the amount of plant life on the ground. "It purports to show a Russian fighter using a knife to cut off the head of a Ukrainian soldier. A voice at the beginning of the video suggests the victim might have still been alive when the brutal attack began," CNN emphasizes.

The Security Service of Ukraine has launched a pre-trial investigation into a video of Russian invaders cutting off the head of a Ukrainian prisoner.

Ukrainian law enforcement agencies are taking measures to identify the perpetrators of this terrible crime.