Russian commander 'shot wounded troops after asking if they could no longer walk'
16 May 2022, 14:35 | Updated: 16 May 2022, 14:49
Wounded Russian soldiers were executed by their commander instead of being taken for medical help, captured invaders have claimed.
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A unit commander shot injured troops after he checked if they were unable to walk first, they said.
In a video, the detained Russian troops are seen telling their Ukrainian captors about him.
They are asked what they mean by saying "finished off".
"A wounded soldier is laying there and the commander of the battalion just shoots him with the gun and that's all," a soldier replies.
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The Ukrainians are told: "Young guy, wounded, laying on the ground.
"Commander asks him can you walk? No? He just took out his gun and shot him."
And the atrocity was not limited to a single victim, the captured troops say.
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"It wasn't just one. The commander shot four to five people this way, young guys."
A soldier says: "They could have been saved, transported somewhere, get some help, but he just killed them."
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Their claims have not been verified but would enter a stream of serious accusations against the Russian military, including war crime claims.
The scale of atrocities by invading forces has been seen in places like Bucha, the town near Kyiv where hundreds of bodies were discovered after its occupiers retreated from their advance on the capital.
It appears to have effectively razed the city of Mariupol in its bid to seize control of it and finally declare a key win after months of fighting.
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Their testimony follows streams of reports about horrendous morale in the ranks of Russian soldiers, and mutinous behaviour in some cases.
A US Department of Defence official told Newsweek that it has been given reports that troops have been disobeying orders.
And it follows a grim claim by Ukraine's Security Service, which said it has intercepted phone calls where Russian troops admit they have been hiding the true scale of their casualties, putting corpses in large "dumps" around Ukraine.
