A Ukrainian frontline medic instructed his staff to “castrate captured Russian soldiers” since they are “cockroaches, not people”, Russian news agency RT reported.
Gennadiy Druzenko owns a war zone mobile hospital in Eastern Ukraine. The 49-year-old said “Trust me, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s military hardware burns well. The corpses of ‘Putinoids’ may stink, but they become unthreatening”, as per RT.
As per the Russian news agency, Druzenko also implied that Russian prisoners of war would die in large numbers so those who survive, remember Ukraine with similar terror with which Germans remember Stalingrad.
Since Russian troops invaded on February 24, the Ukrainian army has not been shy of sharing explicit details of enemy soldiers who’ve been captured and killed. However, the medic’s statement backfired and YouTube ended up blocking the entire live stream segment, including the interview.
Druzenko is a constitutional lawyer who’s volunteering as a frontline medic, and since the backlash, he’s apologized in a short Facebook post.
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The medic said his hospital “does not castrate anyone and is not going to. Those were the emotions. I’m sorry. We are saving lives. Period”. The hospital too released a statement saying the medic’s words were “prompted by threats against Gennadiy and his family personally”. They also claim his words were taken out of context and spread by Russian propaganda channels, Newsweek reported.
Meanwhile, the Russian Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case into the comments made by Druzenko, which means he could face trial under Russian law, RT reports.
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Amnesty International already called on Ukraine in March to protect Russian prisoners of war and treat them in a humane manner. While Ukraine has accused Russia of war crimes due to targeting civilians during shelling, the nation itself has faced accusations of possibly violating the Geneva Conventions by making Russian prisoners of war appear in a news conference. Druzenko’s actions would have been in violation as well.
