Dermatologist Dr Olexandr Turkevich published photos showing the horrific branding (Picture: east2west)
A Ukrainian soldier captured by Russians had a Nazi swastika carved into his forehead, a doctor has claimed.
Dermatologist Dr Olexandr Turkevich published photos showing the horrific branding, saying was inflicted on a Kyiv fighter, named only as Serhiy, who he is treating in their homeland.
‘These photographs show what kind of creatures our men are dealing with at the front,’ he said.
‘[The soldier] told how, when they cut his forehead, they said, “If you were an Azov man, I would take you apart piece by piece”.’
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has long been portrayed by Vladimir Putin as a ‘special military operation’ to ‘denazify’ Ukraine.
The Azov assault brigade, which played a key role in the months-long siege of Mariupol, is seen by Moscow as having far-right or Nazi links.
Dr Turkevich said the swastika attack is ‘direct evidence’ of genocide by the Russians.
The doctor said he is ‘infinitely proud’ of the work he has done to try and remove the grisly branding (Picture: Olexandr Turkevych/east2west new)
The Azovstal steel mill destroyed in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in Mariupol, Russian-controlled Ukraine (Picture: Reuters)
He is ‘infinitely proud’ of the work he has done to try and remove the grisly branding, he added.
Putin often evokes feats from Russia’s military history, whether in the war against Hitler or those waged by past rulers such as Peter the Great, to tap into Russians’ sense of national pride.
Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, has rubbished the Kremlin’s Nazi accusations as absurd and designed to justify an illegal war of conquest.
The country, then part of the Soviet Union, estimates it lost at least eight million of its own people at the hands of the Nazis during World War Two.
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