Ukraine released a video showing Russian soldiers allegedly dragging the body of a badly wounded commander away from the battlefield and beating him violently with shovels.
The video was captured by a Ukrainian drone near the eastern city of Bakhmut, where intense fighting has been raging for months, The Guardian reported.
The video showed four soldiers from Russia’s Wagner group carrying their colleague through a landscape of ruined houses, holding his arms and legs.
Then they dump him next to a barn and a second video showed the three men hitting them repeatedly with shovels, the report added. The fate of the injured commander is not clear.
The report comes amid reports of low morale among Russian mercenary units.
The report said that the Wagner troops are reportedly threatened with execution if they fail to advance and are mown down in large numbers and their corpses littering the frontlines.
The video was shot by a drone unit from the Seneka special platoon earlier this week and was released on Ukrainian social media channels on Monday.
Wagner mercenaries are taking part in Moscow’s offensive on Bakhmut, which Russia has been trying to capture for months, with heavy losses on both sides.
According to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian units were repelling repeated Russian attempts to encircle Bakhmut and breaking through Russian defences.
“We are countering them. I am grateful to every warrior who ensures counter-action with his resilience,” he said in his nightly address.
Zelensky on Saturday vowed to fight for Bakhmut “as long as we can."
Bakhmut, which holds little strategic importance, has enormous symbolic value ahead of the first anniversary of the Russian aggression against Ukraine on 24 February.
Ukraine has massively fortified the nearby cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, where the bulk of its eastern forces are concentrated.
Read all the Latest News here