Several videos showing people tied to poles in Ukraine, and sometimes beaten, have been circulating for several days on social networks.
These images of public humiliation, relayed by pro-Russian accounts, number in the dozens.
Is this a crackdown on Russian sympathizers or a punishment for looters?
Uncertainties remain around these corporal punishments.
We take stock.
What do we see?
For several days, dozens of videos shared on the networks show people tied to trees or poles with adhesive tape.
Some appear naked, the pants down.
Still others are beaten publicly, without anyone knowing why.
A couple thus appears humiliated, tied to a tree with their pants down, shouting in the middle of the street under the blows of a stick inflicted on them by an angry woman.
Other images still show a man tied to a panel, with a sheet hanging from his back on which we can read the term "мародер", which means "marauder" (looter), in Russian and Ukrainian.
The people behind these blows sometimes appear in civilian clothes, or in military fatigues, depending on the videos.
The victims filmed are mostly men, although a few women appear in some images.
Where do these videos come from?
Most of these videos come from Ukrainian Telegram channels, linked to several cities in the country (Kremenchouk, Saltovkan, Kherson..) and armed forces relaying information on the war.
Several photos dating from February 28 and coming from a chain of the “Ukrainian armed forces” thus show a kneeling man, tied to a post, his face bloody, suggesting that he could also have been beaten by his attackers.
While it remains difficult to pinpoint the precise location where these abuses took place, certain urban elements have made it possible to determine their location.
Most of these public humiliation videos were shot in the heart of Ukrainian cities.
This is the case, for example, of a scene showing a man tied to a panel, taking place between a shopping center and a church in Irpin, 20 kilometers from kyiv, reports France Info.
A scene of public humiliation took place last March in Irpin, Ukraine.
A similar scene was described on March 12 by photographer Éric Bouvet, in the same town of Irpin.
“The soldiers immobilized [
men
], checked their identities.
After giving them a few slaps, they ordered them to remove their pants and underwear before tying them to the sign posts at a crossroads.
These men remained half-naked in the middle of the street.
Voluntarily humiliated,” he told Polka magazine.
Another video showing a man tied to the edge of a shopping street was located in the city of Poltava, in the center of the country, according to our colleagues at CheckNews.
The caption describes in Ukrainian “a looter caught stealing from the market”.
How to explain these abuses?
Taken on the spot, these videos, most of them very short, remain difficult to decipher.
However, several hypotheses are on the table.
The first, favored by specialists in the region, remains that of looters publicly condemned by local citizens.
A “marginal phenomenon but which is nothing new”, underlines Adrien Nonjon, researcher at INALCO specializing in Ukraine, the far right and Ukrainian nationalism, who was able to watch these videos.
“Similar scenes had already been observed in the aftermath of the Maidan revolution in 2014. At the time, faced with the emergence of separatists and a limited police presence, civilians had decided to take justice into their own hands, 'by taking from former members of the regime,' explains the academic.
And in this case?
For the time being, there is no guarantee that these victims of public punishment will be condemned for their support for Moscow.
“It is likely that these humiliated people are rather saboteurs paid by Russia to attack installations or even water reserves”, points out the researcher, who however calls for caution.
Because the citizens implicated would not all be looters.
The proof, a trader from the city of Dubno, in the west of the country, would have been tied up and beaten in public… for having sold alcohol, a fact prohibited under martial law, reports another Ukrainian medial .
