Twitter Hides Russian Tweet Calling for a ‘Humiliating Death’ for POWs

• Twitter has hidden a tweet made by the Russian Embassy in the UK, saying that it violates their hate speech rules.
• The tweet said Ukrainian POWs from the Azov Regiment “deserve a humiliating death.”
• The embassy posted the tweet on the day it was reported that shelling killed 53 Ukrainian POWs.

Twitter has hidden a tweet made by the Russian Embassy in the UK, saying that it violates their hate speech rules.

The Russian embassy in the UK has tweeted that Ukrainian prisoners of war “deserve execution, but death not by firing squad but by hanging, because they’re not real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death.”

Twitter has hidden the content, saying it violated hateful conduct rules.

However, the site has not taken the content down, saying that it is “in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”

The tweet refers to POWs from the Azov Regiment, a volunteer infantry unit formed of right-wing Ukrainian ultranationalists that have since been integrated into the country’s national guard in 2014.

The tweet was posted on the same day it was reported more than 50 POWs from the regiment died in an attack against the prison camp in Olenivka in the Russian-occupied Donbas region, the Washington Post reports.

Ukraine and Russia are blaming each other for the strike, saying that each party wanted to silence the prisoners.

Reuters reports that footage of the destroyed prison, released by a Russian media war correspondent, shows the site covered in corpses, some on fire, some charred.

“A missile strike from the US-made multiple launch missile system (HIMARS) was carried out on a pre-trial detention center in the area of ​​the settlement of Olenivka, where Ukrainian military prisoners of war, including fighters from the Azov battalion, are being held,” the Russian defense ministry said, per Reuters.

Ukraine said Russia shelled the prison to manufacture a false claim it was committing war crimes and cover-up its executions.

“In this way, the Russian occupiers pursued their criminal goals – to accuse Ukraine of committing ‘war crimes,’ as well as to hide the torture of prisoners and executions which they carried out there,” said The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces , per Reuters.

Alleged abuse and torture of Ukrainian POWS were also highlighted after footage emerged that appears to show a Russian soldier with a knife and surgical gloves castrating a Ukrainian prisoner as he lies down with hands bound,