The general area came under Russian control in early July. A key clue was provided by the ‘Akhmat’ fighter in the cowboy hat contacted by Bellingcat, who stated that the FSB had told him that the violent videos had been filmed in Pryvillia, a town near Lysychansk in Ukraine’s Luhansk Region. Using evidence from the three violent videos and additional footage of the ‘Akhmat’ fighters, Bellingcat was able to geolocate the footage to the Pryvillya Sanatorium in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine. While he denied that he appeared in the mutilation and execution videos, he did confirm that he had been detained and questioned by the Russian security services over the footage, who had told him that it actually depicted Ukrainian soldiers mutilating one of their own comrades. In a conversation with reporters, he acknowledged that he had been deployed to Ukraine as a member of the ‘Akhmat’ group, and that he was “the man in the cowboy hat” seen in the news broadcasts. However, Bellingcat has obscured his image and name as while there are numerous commonalities, the face of the alleged perpetrator cannot be clearly seen in the videos of the act itself.īellingcat contacted this individual to offer him a right of reply. The identity of the individual who wears the cowboy hat in the videos of the ‘Akhmat’ fighters is known to Bellingcat. Several visual clues in these news broadcasts also suggested that they could have been filmed near, and in the same time frame, as the murder videos, including one filmed at the same location in July of this year. The link to ‘Akhmat’ was uncovered while investigating a man who appeared in multiple news broadcasts about the group who wore the same distinctive hat, bracelet and military fatigues as seen worn by one individual in the mutilation video. However, the authenticity of the videos cannot be validated with purely technical means due to the low resolution of the video and the absence of metadata.īellingcat’s investigation into visual clues in the videos using the available open source evidence corroborates the authenticity of the three violent videos and indicates that fighters from ‘Akhmat’, a Chechen paramilitary formation serving with the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, were present at the scene of the murder. Several incorrect identifications of the man who committed the act – a soldier wearing a cowboy-style hat – were made by various media outlets and individuals online.īellingcat researchers have reviewed the footage, which does not contain visible signs of editing or tampering. In recent days, journalists and open source researchers have sought to identify the culprits of this apparent war crime, with mixed success. In a third video, the captive is executed with a gunshot to the head, presumably by the soldier in the cowboy hat. In the second video, the presumed Russian soldier in the cowboy hat then castrates the captive, who is mocked by the group of soldiers watching. In the first video, two accomplices were seen restraining the man while the cameraman and a man in a cowboy hat looked on.
![faceless man faceless man](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/faceless-man-featured.jpg)
The identity of the victim, whose face cannot be seen clearly in the videos, remains unknown.
![faceless man faceless man](https://editorial.designtaxi.com/news-poppeople1906/2.jpg)
The footage shows a soldier approaching a figure wearing Ukrainian military fatigues and the blue and yellow patches worn by Ukrainian servicemen. ĭescription of the Three Videos (Caution: disturbing content) The videos were initially celebrated by the channel administrators and most of the commenting users, until several hours later they were suddenly disowned by the same as “likely forgeries”, allegedly planted in the pro-Russian channels by agents of Ukraine aiming to discredit the Russian army.Ī description of the act in the videos, which each show a part of the same sequence of events, follows in the closed drop-down box below. The videos were subsequently reposted on the popular Rosich Telegram channel run by a nationalist Russian mercenary group. The three videos (hereafter ‘the violent videos’) were initially posted on a Russian telegram channel whose name translates as ‘Cargo 200, death to Ukrainians’, which extolls casualties among Ukrainian armed forces. Bellingcat has not linked to these videos due to their extremely graphic nature.
![faceless man faceless man](https://wiki.westeros.org/images/0/07/Colin_BoyerFaceless_Man5.png)
FACELESS MAN SERIES
On July 28, a series of horrifying videos circulated on pro-Russian social media which depicted an act of sexual violence and execution of what appeared to be a Ukrainian prisoner of war. Editor’s note: this article contains descriptions of sexual violence and murder which readers may find disturbing.