“I cut their index fingers so they couldn’t shoot again.” The one who speaks is Dugar Zhamnjanov, a sniper of the Russian army who this Sunday, during the maximum audience, confessed in the state’s news Russia 1with total coldness, how he dedicated himself to mutilating rival soldiers, captured in the Ukraine War. “It was necessary and I do not regret it. It is my duty and my work, which I do with pride,” confessed the military before the Russian television cameras.
Dressed in camouflage clothes and a precision rifle in the hand, Zhamnjanov details his method to retaliate the captured soldiers. No hesitation, or filters or stunning of remorse. The scene is part of the main informative program of the Kremlin propaganda apparatus and that, according to It was broadcast as if it were a simple anecdote in the War Front.
The BBC journalist, Francis Scarr, a specialist in the analysis of Russian media content, also shared the time of confession on the social network. “In the Russian state television star program, a soldier tells, as who does not want the thing, who cut his fingers to the captured Ukrainian snipers,” Scar published next to the clip of confession, which has begun to circulate quickly accompanied by criticism.
Although the rawness of the testimony of the Russian sniper has lit social networks, it is not an isolated case. In fact, several international organizations have been warning about the violations of International Humanitarian Law that they have committed on both sides during the Ukraine War. According to the UN, both Russia and Ukraine have tortured and mistreated prisoners of war. In the Russian case, according to the newspaper Daily Express, He had already informed of amputations of arms and fingers to Ukrainian soldiers as usual practice to incapacitate them and avoid their return to the front.
Zhamnjanov’s confession, broadcast without reservations on public television, not only bleached violence, but also exhibits it as a symbol of patriotic duty. Another example of how Russian propaganda machinery uses brutality as a message.
