Russian soldiers on the front lines are finishing off their wounded comrades with butts or headshots. Ukrainian drone footage and testimonies from Ukrainian military personnel confirm that this has become a systematic practice of the Russian army.
This was reported by the German publication BILD, citing video from Ukrainian drones and testimony from Ukrainian military personnel.
According to BILD journalist Julian Röpke, footage taken by Ukrainian reconnaissance drones has repeatedly recorded cases of wounded Russian soldiers being purposefully killed by other Russian soldiers. In one of the videos, a wounded Russian can be seen lying in a trench, moving his arms and head. Another soldier approaches him, examines him, and then hits him three times on the head with a rifle butt, then steps over the body and moves on.
Similar incidents, according to Röpke, were recorded in June 2024, October 2024, and March 2025. For example, in June, a suicide drone attacked a group of Russians. One of the wounded fell, and his comrade immediately shot him in the head. In another video, a soldier shoots a seemingly lightly wounded comrade who was walking slowly.
The prerequisite for such killings is the lack of an evacuation service in the units of the Russian Armed Forces. One of the Ukrainian soldiers serving near Pokrovsk noted:
“There is only one direction for them. Either they complete the task or they die. If we injure them, they only survive if they can return on their own. Otherwise, they die of blood loss in a few hours or days in some basement.”
Or, as Röpke put it, “they will be shot by one of their colleagues.”
“Apostrophe” also wrote about how Russian forces’ children kidnapped in Ukraine, after reaching the age of 18, were forced to go and fight against their own country.
Апостроф
