Russia has opened an investigation after a video of military police beating soldiers was released online.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has opened an investigation after video footage was published on social media of a military police officer brutally beating contract soldiers who entered Ukraine with batons and using a gun.

In the videos, a Russian military man dressed as a police officer walks up to one of the soldiers, beats him to the ground with a baton, shouts explosives at him and shocks him with a stun gun.

Another soldier with a walking stick is seen being pistol-whipped and stunned by a man in a military police uniform who asks him to take off his clothes.

The video, which was circulated on Telegram by Russian war correspondents, has a time stamp of January 16, and local authorities say the events took place in a unit in Kizil, in the Tuva region of southern Siberia.

It is not clear what motivated him to attack the soldiers. Russian war correspondents said there were wounded soldiers being discharged from hospitals to return to the Ukrainian front.

In a statement on its website, the Tuva regional government announced that an investigation had been launched after the videos appeared.

“In one of them, on January 16, 2025, the mistreatment of contract soldiers was recorded in the military department number 55115, before they sent beating and electric gun equipment to the SVO” Tuva government. he said.

SVO is the acronym Russia uses to officially describe what it calls “special military operations” in Ukraine.

“Criminals have been identified, preliminary investigations are being conducted against them, and an assessment of the circumstances will be provided in accordance with the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and criminals will be punished,” the regional government announced.

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