The video started being shared on Twitter early Sunday morning. Serhii Sternenko, whose bio profile describes him as a Ukrainian activist, shared the video in a tweet, and by late Sunday morning it had garnered over 205,000 views and over 9,200 retweets. In the video, the soldier, a 36-year-old Russian veteran, is seen standing on a nightclub stage and addressing a crowd. He says the skull came from a Ukrainian regimental soldier who was killed while fighting Russian forces in Ukraine. A tweet from a user named Den Kazansky also described him as a mercenary. Warning: Video contains images that may disturb readers. 1/2 This is Igor Mangushev. A Russian soldier who went to war to commit genocide. In the video, he himself admits this. He says the main goal of the war is to kill everyone who considers themselves Ukrainian. Mangusev holds a human skull in his hands. pic.twitter.com/LhUwqvo7tH — Serhii Sternenko (@sternenko) August 28, 2022 “This is Igor Mangusev,” Sternenko wrote at the start of a four-tweet thread. “A Russian soldier who went to war to commit genocide. In the video, he himself admits it. He says that the main goal of the war is to kill everyone who considers himself Ukrainian. Mangushev holds a human skull in his hands.” He added: “According to him, this is the skull of a Ukrainian soldier from Azovstal. Do you still want to trade with Russia? Do you still think that Ukraine needs weapons? Russia is an absolute anti-human entity that must destroyed.” Above, a shot of a Russian soldier near a power plant in Luhansk. A man believed to be a Russian soldier gave a speech calling for more violence in Ukraine while holding a skull he claimed was from a dead Ukrainian fighter. Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images During the speech, Mangusev calls for the “de-Ukrainization” of Ukraine and the “return of the lands of Novorossiya”. Novorossiya is the name of a proposed confederation of breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine that was first floated in 2014. It includes the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which were the main points of Russia’s invasion. “We are not at war with flesh and blood people,” Mangusev says in the video. “We are at war with one idea – Ukraine as an anti-Russian state. We are alive and this guy [the skull] he is already dead. Let him burn in hell. He was not lucky. We’ll make a cup out of his skull.” In addition to his role as a mercenary for Russia, Mangushev is also reportedly the leader and founder of the nationalist private military group ENOT. On a functioning Telegram page, he has also called for more violence against the Ukrainian people and their identities. “We will burn your houses, kill your families, take your children and raise them Russians,” he wrote in a post. Newsweek has reached out to Russian officials for comment.
