Russia is opening an investigation after a video was released online of military police beating soldiers

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has opened an investigation after a video was published on social media showing what appeared to be a military police officer brutally beating soldiers traveling to Ukraine with a baton and wielding heavy weapons.

In these videos, a man wearing a Russian military police uniform is shown walking up to one of the soldiers and beating him to the ground with a baton while he was screaming at him and shocking him with a stun gun.

Another soldier with a baton is then shown being beaten with a gun as a man in a police uniform tells them to take off their clothes.

The time stamp on the video, distributed on Telegram by Russian war correspondents, is January 16 and local authorities said the events took place at a unit in Kyzyl, in the southern Siberian region of Tuva.

It is not clear what caused the soldiers to be beaten in this way. Russian war correspondents say they were wounded soldiers discharged from hospital to return to the front line in Ukraine.

The Tuva state government in a statement on its website said an investigation had been opened after the videos appeared.

“In one of them, on January 16, 2025, cases of ill-treatment of contract soldiers were recorded in military unit No. 55115, including beatings and using electric guns before they were sent to the SVO,” the Tuva government. said.

SVO is the acronym Russia uses to describe what it officially calls “Special Military Operations” in Ukraine.

“The perpetrators have been identified, a preliminary investigation has been conducted against them, and the circumstances of the incident will be examined in accordance with the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and the perpetrators will be punished,” the regional government said.

The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.