JAKARTA - Ukraine compared Russia, on Wednesday, to the Islamic State group, asking the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch an investigation, after a video surfaced online showing Russian soldiers filming themselves beheading a Ukrainian prisoner with a knife.
Reuters, as quoted on April 13, could not immediately verify the authenticity or origin of the video on social media, which shows a man in uniform beheading a man wearing a yellow armband used by Ukrainian soldiers.
The Kremlin described the video as "horrific" but said its authenticity needed to be checked. Moscow has previously denied that its forces committed atrocities during the conflict.
"There is something that no one in the world can ignore: how easily these beasts kill," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message.
"There will be legal responsibility for everything. The defeat of terror is necessary," said President Zelensky.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba said on Twitter: "A gruesome video of Russian troops beheading Ukrainian prisoners of war is circulating online.
"It doesn't make sense that Russia, which is worse than ISIS, presides over the UNSC," he said, referring to the UN Security Council, where Russia took the rotating presidency this month.
"Russian terrorists must be expelled from Ukraine and the United Nations and held accountable for their crimes," he criticized.
ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria are notorious for releasing videos of beheading captives, when they controlled large parts of those countries from 2014-2017.
Separately in Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters at a briefing: "First of all, in the fake world we live in, we need to check the veracity of these recordings."
"Then it can be a pretext for checking whether this is true or not, whether it happened, and if it did happen, where and by whom," Peskov continued.
In this regard, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine asked the International Criminal Court to "urgently investigate other Russian military atrocities".
Meanwhile, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar told people online not to name the soldier until his identity was formally established by law enforcement. He urged people to stop sharing videos online.
"Remember, the enemy wants to frighten us. Wants to weaken us," he appealed.
Ukraine's domestic security agency said it had started an investigation into alleged war crimes over the video.
"Yesterday, a video appeared on the Internet, showing how the Russian occupiers, demonstrating their cruel nature, brutally tortured a Ukrainian prisoner and beheaded him," the SBU agency wrote on Telegram.
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In Geneva, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said it was appalled by what it called "absolutely horrific" videos posted on social media.
As well as the claimed executions, other videos show the mutilated bodies of Ukrainian prisoners of war, he said.
"Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. The latest incident must also be properly investigated and the perpetrators must be held accountable," he said.
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