Video shows Ukrainian taking last drag from cigarette before executed

Horrific video shows Ukrainian POW taking one last drag from a cigarette and saying ‘glory to Ukraine’ before being ‘executed by Russian troops’ as Kyiv slams ‘heinous war crime’

• Ukraine’s foreign minister urged International Criminal Court to probe footage 
• It’s ‘imperative’ International Criminal Court ‘launches immediate investigation’
• READ MORE: Putin won’t live long enough to see end of war, TV pundit fears 

This is the moment a reported Ukrainian prisoner of war takes one last drag from a cigarette before being ‘executed by Russian troops’.

The chilling video has emerged as Kyiv described the execution of the soldier as a ‘heinous war crime’. 

In the grim footage, a man – who can be seen smoking a cigarette in a small hole in the ground – says ‘Glory to Ukraine’ – while a group of unseen soldiers are heard sneering in the background.

He is then shot to death with automatic weapons in what some Ukrainian politicians have said is proof of ‘genocide.’

Ukraine’s foreign minister urged the International Criminal Court on Monday to probe footage circulating on social media that he said showed Russian forces killing a Ukrainian prisoner of war. 

‘Horrific video of an unarmed Ukrainian POW executed by Russian forces merely for saying ‘Glory to Ukraine’. Another (piece of) proof this war is genocidal,’ Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on social media

Kuleba said it was ‘imperative’ that International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan ‘launches an immediate ICC investigation into this heinous war crime’. ‘Perpetrators must face justice,’ he added

‘Horrific video of an unarmed Ukrainian POW executed by Russian forces merely for saying ‘Glory to Ukraine’. Another (piece of) proof this war is genocidal,’ Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on social media. 

Kuleba said it was ‘imperative’ that International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan ‘launches an immediate ICC investigation into this heinous war crime’.

‘Perpetrators must face justice,’ he added.

It could not be independently verified where or when the footage was filmed or whether it showed – as some Ukrainian officials and social media users suggested – a Ukrainian prisoner of war being shot.

The phrase spoken by the alleged detained Ukrainian soldier was trending on social media and senior officials in Kyiv blamed Russian forces and called for justice to be served.

Moscow and Kyiv have on several occasions accused the other side of killing prisoners in the year since Russia invaded Ukraine.

The Wagner mercenary group spearheading Russia’s assault on Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine is largely comprised of Russian men recruited from prisons throughout the country.

He was referring to what appears to be amateur footage of a detained combatant standing in a shallow trench, wearing camouflage and smoking a cigarette, being shot to death with automatic weapons after saying ‘glory to Ukraine’

During the conflict, Russian soldier have been accused of murdering, torturing and kidnapping Ukrainians in a systematic pattern. 

Speaking in November last year, a senior US official said that the pattern could even  implicate top officials in war crimes. 

US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack told reporters that there was strong evidence that Russian abuses in Ukraine were not random or ad hoc.

US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack (pictured) said there was strong evidence Russian abuses in Ukraine were not random

There is mounting evidence that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ‘has been accompanied by systemic war crimes committed in every region where Russian forces have been deployed,’ she said.

Evidence from liberated areas indicates ‘deliberate, indiscriminate and disproportionate’ attacks against civilian populations, custodial abuses of civilians and POWs, forceful removal, or filtration, of Ukrainian citizens – including children – to Russia, and execution-like murders and sexual violence, she told reporters.

‘When we’re seeing such systemic acts, including the creation of a vast filtration network, it’s very hard to imagine how these crimes could be committed without responsibility going all the way up the chain of command,’ she said.

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