Russian Special Forces have managed to detain Ukrainian nationalists responsible for torturing captured Russian soldiers, Russian lawmaker, Chairman of the Defence Committee of the State Duma, Vladimir Shamanov has stated.
"The joy of [those who] tortured our servicemen did not last long - three days after [the video of tortures emerged] our special forces captured these bastards. Now they are begging for mercy", Shamanov said.
The lawmaker did not call the captured Ukrainians by name, only saying that two of them had been captured and that they were radicals from a fan group of the Ukrainian football club "Metalist".
The Russian Defence Ministry has not yet confirmed the lawmaker's claim.
A video depicting several Ukrainians, either members of the armed forces or one of the nationalist battalions, humiliating and torturing Russian soldiers has been making the rounds online for days. Several of the Russian servicemen had their legs shot and were left without any medical assistance, according to the footage. The soldiers were captured during the special military operation that Moscow had launched in Ukraine on 24 February.
The Russian investigative committee ordered the launch of an investigation into the incident, during which at least eight captured Russian soldiers were killed after being tortured. The committee said that it will spare no efforts to identify the perpetrators of the crime.
The Russian special operation was launched by President Vladimir Putin in response to a request from the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), which had been suffering from intensified shelling by Ukrainian forces for over a week in February.
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