The horrific footage appears to show Russian kidnappers belonging to a Ukrainian prisoner of war

A shocking video posted online on Thursday shows a Ukrainian prisoner of war being castrated by his Russian captors.

While Yahoo News cannot independently verify the authenticity of the video, the footage, which was initially posted on the pro-Russia Telegram page before quickly circulating on social media, showed what appeared to be a Russian soldier or mercenary wearing a distinctive black fringe hat, mutilating a man. It appears to be a captured Ukrainian soldier.

The victim in the video wears a Ukrainian-style camouflage uniform and appears gagged with his hands tied behind his back. He lies helpless on the floor as the man in Russian costume, which features a “Z” patch, uses a box cutter to cut his clothes and then appears to castrate him while shouting insulting insults in Russian. At least two other men who appear to be Russian soldiers can be seen in the video.

While it is unclear when the video was filmed, what appears to be the same man in a black fringed hat also surfaced in June. Broadcasting By the Russian state-backed media RT. In this clip, the soldier shown with a Dragunov sniper rifle can be seen walking around the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk after Ukraine withdrew from the city. In a post published on the RIA Novosti Telegram channel, the Russian news agency identified the man as part of the Chechen “Akhmat” battalion of the Russian army.

Russia has captured thousands of soldiers and volunteers in the five months since it launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24. In mid-May, about 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers He surrendered in what was the last stronghold of Mariupol. Many of the fighters who were hiding in the steel mill at Azovstal were sent to a former prison colony located 55 miles north of the city. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it collected personal information from soldiers and registered them as prisoners of war when they left steel mills to ensure they were treated humanely under the Geneva Conventions. The International Committee of the Red Cross has also demanded that Russia be given “immediate access to all prisoners of war in all places where they are being held”.

Since the Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine, several charges of war crimes have been brought against Russian soldiers. Vladimir Putin’s government categorically denied all of them.