The Shot Presented as a War Crime Committed by the Ukrainian Soldiers is actually from a Pornographic Video

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On December 10th, 2022, a Georgian-speaking Facebook user published a video clip in which two men dressed in military uniforms appear to be abusing a woman. In addition, in the published picture, the soldiers have blue armbands on their shoulders. According to the description of the post, the video was taken from the phone of a Ukrainian soldier, and the videos found on the same phone showed that Ukrainian “neo-nationalists” were torturing the captured population of Belgorod.

On October 1st, 2022, the same shot was published by a Russian-language Facebook user with a different description. The post alleged that it showed the war crimes committed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kharkiv Oblast. The same information has been circulating in different Russian-language Telegram channels as well. 

The disseminated shot is, in fact, an excerpt from a pornographic video, and it is in no way related to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The blue armbands shown in the photo are manually added to it using computer software.  

The viral shot has been cut from a pornographic video titled Spy Chasers. According to the plot of the pornographic video, men dressed in military uniforms sexually assault two women.

The shot disseminated on social media The scene from the pornographic video

The comparison between the disseminated shot and the actual pornographic video makes it evident that the blue armbands are manually added to the shot to create the impression that it depicts the members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The shot also features the name of the Russian-language Telegram channel  RUS-CRIMINAL. The channel can only be subscribed through a special invitation. No similar post can be found on the channel.

Telegram analytics tool TGStat shows that the post was shared across different Telegram channels with an identical description, although most of them were deleted after some time.

The description of the posts includes an additional link. According to the posts, after clicking the link, one can see videos depicting the violence of the Ukrainian military. The links take the user to closed Telegram channels, which require the administrator’s confirmation for subscription. It is likely that posts with sensitive content are circulated on such Telegram channels to attract subscribers.

It should be noted that the Georgian-language post indicates Belgorod as the location of the alleged war crime. The city of Belgorod is located on the territory of the Russian Federation, about 40 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. During the war, there were several explosions in the city, for which the Russian side blamed Ukraine, although there are no active military operations in Belgorod, and the Ukrainian armed forces did not cross Russian territory.

According to the Russian-language post, the circulated footage shows “the brutality of the armed forces of Ukraine” in Kharkiv Oblast, although part of Kharkiv Oblast has been occupied by Russia for 6 months. After the liberation of the district by the Ukrainian military forces, many Ukrainians spoke about the crimes committed by the Russian military and life under occupation. Back in April, Humans Right Watch reported that between February 27th and March 14th, the organization described cases of war crimes, including rape, executions, and violence by Russian military forces in the occupied parts of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions. On October 18th, the UN published a report of the independent international commission, within the framework of which the commission investigated cases of war crimes and human rights violations in four regions of Ukraine, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy, at the beginning of the war, in late February and March. According to the report, Russian military forces are responsible for the vast majority of war crimes committed in Ukraine. Crimes such as capital punishment, illegal detention, torture, cruel treatment, rape and other crimes of a sexual nature have been identified in all four regions. The report mentions that the age of victims of rape and sexual crimes ranges from 4 to 80 years.


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Country: Ukraine
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