The owner of a war-zone mobile hospital in eastern Ukraine has told a Ukrainian TV interviewer that he has instructed his doctors to ‘castrate’ captured Russian soldiers.
Gennadiy Druzenko, 49, told Ukraine-24 about his alleged order, but it is unclear if it was bravado or a genuine order that would break the Geneva Conventions.
Discussing captured injured Russian soldiers, Druzenko said: ‘I have always been a great humanist and said that if a man is wounded, he is no longer an enemy but a patient.
‘But now [I gave] very strict orders to castrate all [captured Russian] men, because they are cockroaches, not people.’
The owner of a war-zone mobile hospital in eastern Ukraine has told a broadcast that instructed his doctors to ‘castrate captured Russian soldiers’
Gennadiy Druzenko, 49, pictured told Ukraine-24 channel about Russian military prisoners of war
Since 2014, some 500 doctors – male and female – have worked with Druzenko’s mobile hospital.
A lawyer by training, he set up the First Voluntary Mobile Hospital which deploys civilian doctors and nurses in the conflict zone close to the separatist republics in eastern Ukraine.
He also told famous Russian TV host Yevgeny Kiselyov on the Ukraine-24 channel: ‘Believe, all doctors who saved the patients – Russians will die here. Die in large numbers.
‘Those who [come here] will remember their nightmare on Ukrainian soil.
‘Like the Germans remember Stalingrad.’
The head of the committee Alexander Bastrykin (pictured), a former university classmate of Vladimir Putin, initiated a criminal case over his castration demand
The Russian Investigative Committee opened a criminal case into the comments, which means that if Druzenko is captured he will face trial under Russian law.
‘The head of the Ukrainian Mobile Hospital project, Gennady Druzenko, called for violence against captured soldiers of the Russian Armed Forces live on a Ukrainian TV channel.
‘He gave this instruction to the doctors of mobile hospitals.’
The head of the committee Alexander Bastrykin, a former university classmate of Vladimir Putin, initiated a criminal case over his castration demand which is ‘contrary to the law and the norms of medical ethics.’
Druzenko is set to be put on Russia’s international wanted list.