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”
