A Ukrainian frontline medic has claimed that he has ordered castration of all Russian POWs stating that “we treat ours and turn theirs into fertilizer,” attesting to the treatment of prisoners of war in Ukraine.
On Sunday, the founder and commander of a Ukrainian volunteer medical unit vowed on national tv that all Russian soldiers arrested would be castrated. The volunteer military doctor, whose squad has already been dubbed “medical angels” by Western press, said “cockroaches” do not merit the freedom to reproduce.
Gennadiy Druzenko, a constitutional lawyer shifted volunteer combat doctor in Ukraine, made the surprising admission. In a televised broadcast with Ukrainian media, he chastised the US for its unwillingness to go to war with Russia on Ukraine’s behalf, before remarking on the Russian military.
“Trust me, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s military hardware burns well. The corpses of ‘putinoids’ may stink, but they become unthreatening,” he said.
During the fight, Druzenko stated that he had deviated from the premise that a wounded enemy fighter should be handled like a normal patient.
I gave my doctors … a very strict order to castrate all men, because they are cockroaches and not people.
He further hinted that Russian prisoners of war “will die in very large numbers” at the hands of his battalion, so that remaining Russians would recall Ukraine with fear “like the Germans remembered Stalingrad.”
The host abruptly ended the conversation at this moment, saying that Russian forces will be “held accountable.” Her co-host reassured the audience that Russia is under investigation in Ukraine for potential war crimes.
After the interview received widespread attention, YouTube removed the full livestream portion, that included the interview, on Monday.
The allegations have prompted Russia to open a criminal probe.
Druzenko oversees the Pirogov First Volunteer Mobile Hospital, a squad of civilian doctors that has been delivering assistance to Ukrainian soldiers since 2014, when post-coup authorities in Kiev dispatched the Ukrainian military to quell an uprising in eastern Ukraine. He is a well-known personality at home, having won multiple accolades from the Defense Ministry and the National Security Council for his efforts.
Druzenko, who is proficient in English and has spoken freely to CNN and the New York Post about the efforts of the people they labelled as the “medical angels” at the Russian offensive on his nation, has been a favorite of the Western media.
Druzenko worked for many Western institutions before the crisis, including as regional director for a USAID-funded initiative in Ukraine in the early 2010s, as per his CV. From 2009 to 2010, he served as a researcher at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the United States, and in 2010 at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
During an interview with Ukrainian television, Druzenko admitted that his squad had a “military wing” made up of ex-commandos, and that as a result, his squad had been sarcastically dubbed the “First Volunteer Mobile Storm Unit.”
“We treat ours and turn theirs into fertilizer. Unwelcome guests have never been loved on this soil,” he added. He said that Americans were envious of Ukraine as they were “afraid to fight against the Russians and we are not.”
He also praised his lengthy history of fighting for Ukraine, claiming that “the enemy has not changed and the means of war have not changed” since 2014.
Amnesty International had previously urged the Ukrainian authorities to safeguard Russian prisoners of war from public humiliation, as required by the Third Geneva Convention. Its statement was issued in reaction to several recordings of detainees posted on social media, as well as Kiev’s practice of bringing them to news conferences to discuss their involvement in the Russian offensive and pleading with their families not to support it.