Trigger warning, disturbing images

The Donetsk Region Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation on account of the war crime which occurred in November 2025 during the storming of positions near the village of Gnatovka, Pokrovsky district.

It is alleged that after the battle, Russian soldiers tied the hands of a wounded Ukrainian soldier and began hitting him in the head with a rifle butt while he was conscious. After that, the man was killed with several shots from a machine gun.

“Finish him! Who will do it? Bring him down? Come on!” the Russian soldiers say in the video. One of them had his machine gun jammed right before the crime.

A pre-trial investigation has been launched into the commission of a war crime that resulted in the death of a person (Part 2 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), the Prosecutor’s office of the Donetsk region reported. Employees of the department identify those involved in the crime.

“The premeditated murder of prisoners of war is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and qualifies as a grave international crime,” the prosecutor’s office said.