The head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin , instructed to open a criminal case after the publication by the former commander of the Azov battalion of a video with the bodies of civilians killed in Kupyansk.
“On social networks, the former commander of the Azov national battalion (the organization is banned on the territory of Russia by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation) Maxim Zhorin published footage of the bodies of killed civilians with their hands tied in the city of Kupyansk, Kharkov region, claiming that Russian servicemen were involved in their murder,” — SC says.
The Investigative Committee stated that the internal parameters of the video indicate the date of filming on October 9, when the city was already under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“Investigators of the Russian Investigative Committee will take measures to establish the circumstances of the death of civilians, as well as all those involved in their torture and murder, in order to bring them to criminal liability,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
Zhorin posted a video of bodies from Kupyansk on 9 October. He claims that he was found in the "occupier's phone". In the video, unidentified persons dump the body of a man with his hands and feet tied into a pit where other bodies are already lying.
After that, pro-Russian Telegram channels began to distribute this video, claiming that it was the Ukrainian military who massacred civilians who collaborated with the Russian authorities.
The city of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region was liberated by the Ukrainian military on September 10. The other day, they found corpses in the cellar of one of the houses. The dead are the 73-year-old mistress, as well as her neighbors: a 65-year-old woman, her grandson and daughter-in-law. The investigation showed that all had bullet wounds in the chest and head. The dead were buried by relatives and neighbors.
Also in Kupyansk were found the bodies of two men with signs of torture. One of the dead had injuries in the form of bruises on the neck and chest, the other from a bullet wound in the chest and groin, as well as a wound on the head.