This afternoon.

Further to the emergence of a video allegedly showing the activities of a Ukraine army unit called Kraken, affiliated with the far-right National Corps, where footage included soldiers apparently shooting Russian prisoners of war in the legs…

…via BBC ‘Reality Check’:

The BBC has geo-located footage from this video to the village of Vilkhivka, 3.5 miles (5.6km) from Malaya Rohan. The weather is similarly sunny and dry.

The group said 30 Russians were taken prisoner in the village on 25 March and the Kraken video has footage of PoWs bound, blindfolded and being bundled into a van at one point and forced to sing the Ukrainian national anthem at another point. But there is no shooting or serious violence towards them.

The BBC contacted Konstantin Nemichev, head of the National Corps in the Kharkiv region. He said his forces treated prisoners “humanely” and denied any connection to the video of the alleged shootings at the dairy.

Meanwhile…

…In the most disturbing part of the video, three men appear to be shot in the legs at close range with an assault weapon.

There’s been some debate on social media as to whether the footage is genuine or staged, with some people claiming there isn’t enough blood, evidence of exit wounds or shouting and screaming from the victims for it to be real.

We showed the video to several trauma surgeons and former military doctors who gave us their expert opinion but wished to remain anonymous.

One said he had treated soldiers who had sustained gunshot injuries who didn’t shout or scream and said the lack of bleeding on some of the wounded soldiers could be explained by them having had a tourniquet applied (visible in the video).

He said: “It is my opinion that the footage cannot be categorised as ‘fake’ purely based on the images seen. This requires an investigation for war crimes.”

Another doctor said: “It appears genuine… these meet the description of punishment shootings to the limbs”.

Other people on social media pointed to the lack of apparent recoil on the assault rifle when it was fired, claiming it could have been firing blank rounds.

Mr Reynolds points out that the AK-74’s 5.45mm round is small-calibre and has very little recoil but he also added “the video quality isn’t great”.

The BBC is continuing efforts to verify this video and will update this piece if more evidence comes to light.

Previously: “We Are A European Army, And We Do Not Mock Our Prisoners”

Does video show Russian prisoners being shot? (BBC)

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Related posts:

“We Are A European Army, And We Do Not Mock Our Prisoners” Keeping An Eye On Russia “Hit Putin And His Henchmen Where It Hurts” Sorry Not Sorry

128 thoughts on “The Farm”

    1. Broadbag

      Grim.

      Anyone see the Twitter investigation into Kadyrov’s claims that he was in Ukraine – after some doubts were raised he posted a picture at a petrol station – run by a company with zero petrol stations in Ukraine!

        2. K.Cavan

          That’s right, Ian, the Russian people will look at their President, trying, for some unfathomable reason, to ensure that foreign nuclear weapons are not placed ten minutes flying time from their capital city, then observe the friendly sanctions that The West has imposed & obviously assume it would be better to have their minerals, oil & gas purloined by US corporations, than carry on like this.
          It’s so obvious.

          5. Cian

            Do you know that parts of Latvia (a NATO country) are about 590lkm from Moscow?
            Closest parts of Ukraine are ‘only’ 460km away from Moscow.

            If Ukraine is “10 minutes flying time” then Latvia is less than 13 minutes away.

      1. K.Cavan

        No War Crimes tribunals for the Ukrainian Nazis, I’m afraid, Ian. They will fight to the last man. Many in the Aydar battalion may be praying to Adolph Hitler, who they revere as a deity. The remainder of the Nazis will offer themselves up for Stepan Bandera.
        They will all die. The Ukrainian regulars will surrender, they’re not fanatics, even if most of them would undoubtedly shoot Zelensky on sight.

    3. SOQ

      Sez the person who immediately ran to discredit a video of a tortured dead woman’s body with a swastika carved into it last Sunday evening? Fortunately that video is being believed- and a criminal investigation has begun.

          2. SOQ

            This video broke 24 hours on TikTok before anywhere else of course.

            As for BioLabs- they are there, as acknowledged by the US government. That Zelenskyy is refusing to allow independent observers in should be a pretty good indication of what they contain. Time will tell.

          3. paul

            “Time will tell”

            …or you’ll spin us a story tomorrow cobbled together from twine, frustration and unverified TikTok videos about how Putin is just misunderstood and how your Russian payslip still hasn’t arrived.

            The above video does seem pretty damning and hopefully prosecution and punishment will follow but when Russia lies out of both sides of their mouth, it’s not hard to see propaganda wherever Putin has a finger.

          4. SOQ

            That story was as verified on TikTok as it is on YouTube, which is the whole point of the BBC investigation. But according to you- being posted on YouTube somehow makes it more legitimate?

            I am surprised it is even on YouTube given how censored it is these days. Most likely because it was flying all around TikTok for the previous 24 hours and they had no choice.

            Another one with a stroppy attitude- and very little else.

          5. paul

            thanks for addressing the one part of my post that you could deal with. I’d have just as much trouble with Youtube as TikTok, too hard to verify before it flies around the world getting under peoples skin and too easy to push an agenda.

            Bit rich for a one-dimensional character such as yourself to say someone else has not much other than a stroppy attitude. But gwan so, who cares, weekend just around the corner.

          7. K.Cavan

            The biolabs were announced, voluntarily, by the White House in the “person” of that evil hag Victoria Nuland, then the US media completely reversed their opinion on the Hunter Biden laptop, since it contained evidence linking him to the financing of the labs, clearly under instruction.
            It would be insane to trust Biden’s White House or the lowlife scum of the US MSM. The biolabs story is clearly a psyop, it could go anywhere but not anywhere good.
            I’d say watch this space, false flags on the horizon.

          8. Nigel

            ‘reversed their opinion ‘

            Lie

            ‘since it contained evidence linking him to the financing of the labs’

            Absolute lie-a-palooza.

          4. Ian - oG

            Can you please show me this sexism you are referring to SOQ?

            And please, don’t make yourself look (even more than you already are) stupid by suggesting my comment above is sexism, but, sigh, not being too bright, I guess you will.

            LOL

          7. Ian - oG

            And there it is…..lol

            God help you SOQ, keep devouring your CCP approved social media app like a good little stooge.

          8. SOQ

            CCP or CIA? Decisions decisions- if that is the best criticism you have of the TikTok platform then I suggest you have a look at Twitter.

            They have actually banned Prof Carl Heneghan from the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine in Oxford University- a man who deals strictly in facts and figures- absolute morons.

        3. E'Matty

          Eh, are you stupid? The biolabs are an established fact. Even Victoria Nuland confirmed their existence. The only question is what were they researching and what was their purpose in doing so? That they exist is beyond dispute. Classic Daisy fail.

          1. Nigel

            Yes. Of course the claims were that they were making bioweapons. The claims originated in a Qanon account, spread across the internet and got taken up by the Russians.

          3. Daisy Chainsaw

            Ireland has biolabs too, sure every country has them. Ukrainian biolabs are being used as weapons of mass distraction akin to “but her emails”.

          4. Me So Harney

            “Ireland has biolabs too..”

            That’s great gaslighting daisy, are they sponsored by the USDOD? Are they grade one pathogen specification..

            Lols at contrarionism, mandate huggers desperately trying to stay relevant..

          7. Nigel

            It IS nonsensical that a Qanon meme spreads across the internet thanks to people like yourself and SOQ and then the Russians take it up. Must give you guys a sense of acheivement, though. Pity nobody but yourselves believes it.

          9. SOQ

            Never once in my entire time on this site have I ever mentioned Qanon, but know this. Your job is to smear when you don’t have an legitimate argument, which is fairly regularly in fairness.

            What’s the money like btw?

          10. Nigel

            Well of course you didn’t. Can’t have anyone looking too closely at the origins of the bioweapons story you helped spread, eh?

            ‘Your job is to smear when you don’t have an legitimate argument’
            ‘What’s the money like’

            Snap.

          11. SOQ

            You don’t come anywhere close on the quality stakes Nigel- and you know it. I am not paid by anyone, but then again I don’t have an agenda to push. Yours at this stage- is pretty obvious.

            You won’t even disclose your nationality ffs.

          12. Nigel

            ‘ Yours at this stage- is pretty obvious.’

            My cmments reflect my opinions, if that’s my ‘agenda’ I should hope so. Claiming I’m being paid is obviously a smear. We all know how much you hate smears.

            You asked me my nationality ages ago and I told you.

          16. SOQ

            You have NEVER disclosed your nationality- sitting on an Irish all day every day, don’t you think people should know?

          17. Nigel

            I dud answer before. It was none of your business then but I liked you a lot better at the time, and it’s none of your business now.

          18. SOQ

            Nope you never did but, if you are going to spend your time elbowing into ever conversation on this site- attempting to redirect, deflect or just create white noise- then I think people have a right to know- don’t you?

            Unless paid actors are being paid by broadsheet.ie, which is highly unlikely because you can’t pluck feathers off a frog, then they have absolutely no business being here.

          19. Nigel

            Yes I did.
            It’s an open forum and an open conversation.
            Your acccusations are meaningless and self-serving and you have no right to demand personal information off other commenters.

          20. Broadbag

            ”sitting on an Irish all day every day”

            Come on Nigel, own up! What Irish are you sitting on – a full Irish? an Irish Mammy? an Irish stew? an Irish welcome? Spill the beans, we (completely non-xenophobics) deserve an answer!

    4. Dr.Fart

      those soldiers came to their country and bombed schools and hospitals and killed women and children. a shot in the leg is getting off lightly. if they came to your area and killed ur family I doubt you’d be telling Irish soldiers to leave them alone unharmed.

        1. Dr.Fart

          to re-afirm: if people are destroying my country and trying to wipe my people out, I wouldnt be paying attention to people looking down their nose at me for the mild retribution of leg shooting.

          2. K.Cavan

            Even though two wrongs don’t make a right, your assertion about Russia’s aims are utter garbage. The areas of Eastern Ukraine that Russia is operating in voted overwhelmingly in favour of the pro-Russian candidate, twice, before those democratic election results were overturned by illegal CIA-organised coups. Why on earth would Russia attempt to kill their own people & destroy a country that they built & mean to rule over?
            Mariupol is the only Ukrainian city that’s been seriously damaged, the attack on Kiev was a feint which tied up 100,000 Ukrainian troops.
            But don’t let facts get in the way of your puerile, tabloid-inspired fantasies.

      3. K.Cavan

        They did bomb schools & hospitals, Mr Fart, because that’s the type of big, institutional buildings that are handy as military barracks in a war where your enemy knows where your actual barracks are. The Ukrainian generals were all trained by the USSR, they’re not idiots.
        They were just big buildings full of enemy soldiers, to the Russians, the patients & schoolkids were moved out to make room for the fighters.
        I know this doesn’t fit your movie script-based worldview of Goodies V Baddies but the world, unlike your imagination, is run by adults.

        1. Nigel

          Even if such obviously self-serving claims are made by the people committing them, still war crimes.

    5. jonjoker

      “We are a European army, and we do not mock our prisoners.”
      Just to distinguish themselves from various European and US armies in Iraq and Afghanistan, I suppose.
      I suppose neither Fallujah nor Abu Ghraib ever happened, so.

    7. Dinkum

      I would say it is true Be wary of what you support .
      Ukraine is renowned for for their Nazis

    1. Covid19000

      Where are the cruise missile compilation videos with the c&c soundtrack?

      Iraq was way more fun.

      1. Gavin

        I think the point is those issues are well covered by larger mainstream media outlets, if you want to see that content discussed there are plenty of other sites

      2. K.Cavan

        Fun? Yeah, you’re dragging us down to your level now, Covid.
        There’s lots of footage, if you know where to look for it but the Western MSM don’t want to show the most successful military campaign of the modern era, for some reason. They prefer, like you, to watch innocent civilians being murdered by two weeks of cruise missile attacks on cities, courtesy of Uncle Sam.

    2. stephen moran

      Bless – you clearly don’t understand in the BS clickbait universe a war in which a independent sovereign that is being invaded is meant to without exception play by totally by Queensberry Rules whilst the hostile neo Czarist invader which is a victim of the western culture wars is free to indiscriminately shell civilian cities for weeks on end with no comment – sure I’d say most of the readership still don’t acknowledge Biden won by more that 7 million votes .

      2. K.Cavan

        Sure, stephen, The Pensioner won but the votes cast in that election exceeded those in the previous election by 24 million. Odd, that.
        The rest of your comment is fanciful mid-wittery.

  3. Covid19000

    I found an Irish Reg car in one of the videos on The Sun. It’s obviously filmed in Ireland so.

    Imagine trying to use propaganda to win it?

    How am I supposed to pick sides?

    It’s far easier with football, you just follow and shout at opposing teams.

    1. Nigel

      It’s more viscerally shocking than images of missiles being fired into cities but the missiles are still the bigger war crime. In fact the whole war is.

      1. bisted

        …you are an apologist for the country who invented shock and awe…the last time the Democrats were in power they bombed 8 different countries…last night the Saudis bombed Sanaa, the capital of Yemen with US bombs on US planes and the zionists bombed Damascus…but that’s OK because they are the good guys…

        1. Nigel

          That’s funny, I’ve never ‘apologised’ for shock and awe, or claimed any of those things were done by ‘good guys’. You literally made that up because you’re supporting a warmonger and justifying his war crimes.

          5. Ian - oG

            Tell the truth Nigel, it was you that hung that ”mission accomplished” banner on the aircraft carrier for Bush, wasn’t it?

            You naughty, naughty boy.

      2. jonjoker

        The killing of people is wrong.
        War is wrong.
        War by non-military means, aka financial/economic terrorism, is also wrong.

        Shooting people who were sent to war after they have been captured by their opponents is wrong too.

        Drones killing people – eg a wedding party in Afghanistan – is wrong. Shooting civilians from a helicopter is seriously wrong.

    2. SOQ

      No I don’t think so- Azov may be paid by the state but they are a law onto themselves. Get rid of them and Zelenskyy is gone.

      He’ll probably hang on until he makes his big screen appearance at the Oscars of course- army two piece by Hugo Boss maybe?

    3. K.Cavan

      No, bisted, the Ukrainian army will be encouraged to surrender, which I think they will do. The Nazis will not surrender, they will be annihilated.

      1. Dinkum

        I would say that’s the sum of it .
        When it’s all over he will flee with like all these leaders with half the economy in his pocket

  5. Point

    …reading the comments isn’t make this place better. Makes me a bit depressed honestly. I remember it being fun to pop into the comments. About 5 people are the main “characters” daily and going in circular conversations, repeat the next day.

    It’s getting so heavy and repetitive, also the comment section :)

    Broadsheet was almost for a few months, a few years ago, almost important and relative… it’s fallen into conspira loons waiting to read the replys to their comments.

    I won’t take a single post on here seriously again, sadly. Didn’t have far to fall and they got a shovel

    1. Bodger

      Point, you’re being very unfair to the commenters. Some of the nicest, kindest and most caring people come here for a natter. They are why we carry on and carried on even when our brief relevancy that time expired.

      1. Point

        It was fun for a while… it’s now the status quo.

        Anybody new to this place and looking at comments it’s just a negative clique of professional debaters with nothing better to do.

        I just miss light hearted fun.

        1. paul

          could be a balance of articles. More silly light-hearted stuff would generate those sorts of comments, more like the above generates… well, the above comments.

          Being reminded that there are other things going on in the world than war and disease would certainly be welcome in my mind. I spent my lunch break in a work meeting that turned into a discussion of good things happening around the hospital and we all left feeling the warm and fuzzies.

          1. Point

            FairPlay to you Paul and I’m sure all the people who used to comment on here are reading that too. It’s just, I don’t mind the conspiracy articles or right of centre stuff… it’s just the comments that take away from the open and fun place it was.

            Change is fine and change is ok, just wanted to say I don’t like it. And if it’s just me, that’s also ok. I will avoid the comments and I will miss them.

            That’s all.

          4. paul

            Is there a story to accompany the picture? I love a bit of context, a bit of mischief.

            Bodger, can we see the picture of the cat?

    2. Covid19000

      100% agree about its relevance and slide into the murky disinformation depths.

      I think I come back out of nostalgia. I do like their what’s in the papers. Fair play to Derek too who writes very well.

      It’s a bit one flew over the cuckoo’s nest when you try and point out that spreading false narratives can be dangerous. This is especially clear with the Ukraine invasion. Its cynical but I’m sure it keeps a few euros deposited regularly.

    3. K.Cavan

      Well, Point, we’re not really living through the best of times, apologies that we haven’t made it all more entertaining for you.
      Now, get out.

  6. Kim Cardassian

    “We found a potential Ukrainian war crime!”

    *ignores the fact Ukraine has been invaded and the invading force has been committing war crimes all long*

    1. K.Cavan

      It’s highly unlikely that Ukrainian regulars or Russian soldiers will commit any serious “War Crimes” but the Nazis are a different matter.
      War is the greatest crime by far, anyway, we’ve just become used to it, because of the USA’s tendency to constantly use it as a way of generating profits.

    1. SOQ

      Hardly- but do I find their image recognition system quite interesting. How many millions of images would have had to be scanned before a match like that above?

      It is one of the reasons why soldiers are banned from taking pictures of themselves in combat for social media anymore, because even if the geo location is not included, the backgrounds can give so much away.

      1. Wrong said Fred

        It’s pretty interesting to be fair. I suppose they could narrow it down to areas in and around the active conflict but it’s still a massive area so must be pretty sophisticated.
        There was a Timewaster of the Day from many moons ago (those were the days) of guessing the global location from google street view which I think the BBC website was hosting, maybe they hired the best people at that!

        1. SOQ

          It is very sophisticated because pictures are taken from all sorts of different angles.

          So it is not just a question of taking one and comparing against the rest, that first has to be rendered into as many angles as possible- and then each one of those ran against the full list.

          The processing power for that sort of thing must be huge- bitcoin mining huge- thousands of originals against millions upon millions of others- and that is only static.

          Unless they have some way of comparing video directly against images- its been a long time since I worked in 3D CAD so it probably has moved on a lot since then- especially with the AI element at play.

          1. Cian

            Google maps can do that from your phone. It’s called Live View™

            When you tap Live View Maps AR, a message pops up on your screen. The message tells you to point your phone camera at buildings, street signs, or any element of scenery that Google Maps can recognize against Street View data in the area. Once Google Maps recognizes where you are, it displays the navigation instructions on your phone.

          2. SOQ

            Was Google Maps in that area mind? Would it really be that simple? I am probably over complicating it by starting from scratch.

      2. K.Cavan

        Algorithms, SOQ, they can scan at incredible speeds & are used by the security aparatus of the US to spy on everything & everybody, every where & all the time.
        Every comment on this forum is scanned for keywords, every tweet, every social media post, every phone call.

        1. SOQ

          Well yeah but an algorithm is something like a neural network. I expect the way it works is they are trained to pick our features like trees and facades then go measure those samples against the data set.

          But you are right, facial recognition has come on so far that anything is possible.

        2. Covid19000

          One of the reasons to limit your behavior on the Internet and perhaps realise that things are built to guide you down these algorithmic data collecting rabbit holes.

          1. SOQ

            WTF does that even mean?

            I have studied Neural Networks, Expert Systems and Natural Language at University 3rd level so familiar with the principles- also 3D rending and Geographical Information Systems at 4th- we were having a grown up conversation before you stuck your bitchy nose in.

          2. Cian

            Wow. You don’t come across as someone that studied any of those topics. Did you pass any exams?

          4. SOQ

            All of them-

            None of those subjects were ever discussed on this site so don’t be a smart ass.

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