Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged international leaders to act after disturbing video emerged on Wednesday of Russian soldiers apparently beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war lying on the ground.
Ukraine’s president said the world could not ignore the “evil” footage, which has not been verified by the Guardian.
“How easily these beasts kill. We are not going to forget anything. Neither are we going to forgive the murderers,” Zelenskiy said. “There will be legal responsibility for everything. The defeat of terror is necessary.”
The clip appears to show a member of the Russian army using a knife to cut the head off the soldier. It is unclear when or where the video was shot. It may have been filmed last summer, judging by the green foliage in the background.
A second video appears to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian servicemen lying next to a destroyed military vehicle. A voice says: “They killed them. Someone came up to them. They came up to them and cut their heads off.”
In a video address on Wednesday, Zelenskiy said the apparent execution was part of a grim pattern, seen in Russian-occupied areas including Bucha, in the Kyiv region, where invading soldiers tortured and killed hundreds of civilians.
“There are no people for them. A son, a brother, a husband, someone’s child. This is a video of Russia just trying to make that the new norm. Such a habit of destroying life,” he said.
Zelenskiy continued: “This is not an accident. This is not an episode. This was the case earlier. This was the case in Bucha. Thousands of times. Everyone must react. Every leader.”
His remarks come amid Ukrainian requests for more western weapons before an imminent counter-offensive. Leaked classified US documents suggest Washington believes Kyiv may be able to make only modest territorial gains, against a dug-in Russian army.
One top secret document says Ukraine faces significant “force generation and sustainment shortfalls”. There are warnings made in February that Kyiv is also running out of ammunition for its Soviet-era air defence systems, which by May could be fully depleted.
Serhi Leshchenko, an adviser to Andrii Yermak, Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, said the gruesome video underscored why more military assistance was needed. “We are not just fighting against the Putin regime but with a terrorist state,” he told the Guardian. “The west needs to help us stop this new Isis.”
He added: “If you can form a coalition against Isis in the Middle East you can do the same against Isis in Europe. Russia is a threat to everybody. One day they will behead victims not only in Bakhmut but in London and New York.”
Zelenskiy promised there would be a legal reckoning for those who carried out the beheading and for multiple other Russian crimes. “The main goal is to win … Defeat of the occupier, sentences to murderers. Tribunal for the evil state,” he said.
The video circulated on Telegram, Twitter and other social media channels, causing revulsion among Ukrainians. The journalist Olga Tokariuk pointed out that Russia was the current chair of the UN’s security council, despite vociferous objections from Kyiv.
The Guardian has not independently verified the origins and veracity of the two videos, but Ukrainian authorities are treating them as genuine.
