Ukraine launched a criminal investigation into what it said was Russia’s “brutal and brazen shooting of an unarmed person” depicted in a video spread on social media, the country’s top prosecutor said on Monday.

The 12-second video, which rapidly amassed shares on Twitter, shows an apparently unarmed man in a uniform with a Ukrainian flag insignia on his arm standing and smoking a cigarette in a wooded area.

The man says “Slava Ukraini!” – or Glory to Ukraine – before multiple shots are heard coming from an unseen shooter or shooters. The man slumps to the ground as bullets appear to hit his body.

The “Glory to Ukraine” phrase and the response “Heroyam Slava”, or “Glory to the Heroes”, has been a hallmark of post-Soviet Ukraine, but it has taken on special significance as a common greeting in public life since the start of the war. It has also served to rally international support for Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, noting that the video had appeared on Monday, said it showed Russian occupiers brutally killing a soldier.

He added, “I want us all in unity to respond to his words, ‘Glory to the hero. Glory to the heroes. Glory to Ukraine.’ And we will find the murderers.”

Andriy Kostin, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, said on Telegram that Ukraine’s security service had registered the shooting as a criminal case under a part of the country’s criminal code that covers violations of war laws and customs.

“Even the war has its own laws,” he said, adding that prosecutors from his office would lead the case. “There are rules of international law systematically ignored by the Russian criminal regime. But sooner or later, there will be punishment.”

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said the man was a Ukrainian prisoner of war and that the incident was part of a “deliberate policy of terror” by Russia.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse