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The Beheading of a POW
Editorial note, returned the links from Moscow Calling’s post.
Some moments in any war reveal the nature of the army fighting that war. For the record, we have seen photos of heads on pikes in places occupied by the Russian military, and almost a year ago, we saw a video of a Russian soldier cutting the testicles off a Ukrainian POW. So over the last day, we saw a video emerge on the network of two Russian soldiers beheading a Ukrainian POW.
I know the temptation remains with many of us to blame Vladimir Putin for all this. But the reaction from at least a section of the Russian public tells me this is, at best, widespread to the nationalist right. They celebrated this, and some watched this video multiple times and were happy to do so.
I will not link to it. I know it exists, and if you choose to watch it, you could find it on Twitter or Telegram. Realize this is extremely traumatizing material, and I do hope the International Court has a copy because it belongs as part of the evidence in a coming war crime tribunal. Suffice it to say, as a medic; I have seen headless bodies, usually a consequence of industrial accidents. I am not a flower when it comes to trauma. I know this is not a video that is necessary to watch to reach a few conclusions.
The first and most apparent is that the Russian army has no good order or…