“He is still alive,” one man said in Russian. “Breathe.” A soldier points a rifle and fires two shots at the body, stops and then fires another. The body stops moving. A man narrated on camera then turns to film a Russian infantry fighting vehicle with the “V” mark similar to that seen on Russian military equipment used by many units in Ukraine. “A little trophy,” says the man. Someone off-camera says, “Slava Ukrayini!” – Glory to Ukraine, a patriotic greeting, and a bearded man enters the frame and answers, “Glory to the heroes”, the standard answer. The exact time and date of the video, which appeared on the pro-Russian Telegram channel, is unclear. The location of the video matches that of a video posted on Twitter by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. This video, released on April 2, shows a Russian armored column being blown up. “Craft work of Ukrainian defenders in the Kiev region,” the caption reads. A different video of the scene, shot from a different angle, appeared on UNIAN, a Ukrainian news agency, on March 30. It shows the same bearded man and the caption says the video shows the Georgian Legion, a group of volunteers fighting on the Ukrainian side, in an operation to clear the Kiev region of Russian troops. The video of the alleged execution comes just days after horrific images emerged of the apparent massacre of civilians by Russian forces in Kiev’s Bucha suburb. Asked about the video at a NATO press conference in Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said: “I have not seen it. I have heard it. I want to assure you that the Ukrainian army is following the rules of war.” Kuleba added, “There may be isolated cases of breaking these rules and they will definitely be investigated. But I wanted to check the date of this video again, because you have to understand one thing now (or) you will not understand. I’m sorry, but you do not understand how you feel. “When you saw photos in Bucha. Talking to people who escaped, knowing that this person you know was raped for four days in a row. And when he finally arrived in Kyiv, he was taken directly to a psychiatrist.” “This is not an excuse for those who break the rules of war on every side or in the front line,” Kuleba continued. “But there are some things we just can’t understand.”
