Russian troops have begun beheading Ukrainian soldiers in an act of "terrible barbarism" that violates the Geneva Conventions, Ukraine's prosecutor general alleged Tuesday.
Aerial reconnaissance over a battlefield in Ukraine's Donetsk region revealed a damaged Ukrainian military vehicle, Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin's office said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging website.
"On it was the severed head of a Ukrainian defender," Kostin's office said.
The statement was accompanied by a photo that appeared to show a crashed, bullet-riddled armored truck with a small, blurred image on its hood.
Officials didn't say when the alleged beheading occurred.
Prosecutors have received information that a Russian division commander "gave an order not to capture Ukrainian servicemen, but instead to kill them with inhuman cruelty — by beheading," according to Kostin's office.
"This is a terrible barbarism that has no place in the 21st century," the statement said. "And this is another proof that the war crimes committed by the aggressor are not isolated incidents, but a planned strategy of the Russian regime."
The prosecutor general's office called the alleged order and beheading a "gross violation" of the Geneva Conventions.
Kostin called on "the entire civilized world to isolate and punish the terrorist country," his office said.
The Ukrainian Security Service has launched a pretrial investigation to identify "specific military personnel of the Russian Federation in the commission of this crime," according to the prosecutor general's office.
