The drone images were leaked to Frontal via an anonymous contact in Ukraine. They are two clips, one two minutes long, the other almost four minutes long. They show barely bearable footage: it's March 7, 2022, early afternoon local time. A Ukrainian surveillance drone is filming the E40 expressway a few kilometers west of Kiev.
North of the highway, the Russians have taken Kiev's suburbs. They have advanced to the road. The drone films a Russian tank position with the typical white sign a few meters from a gas station. In front of it is an apparently shot blue wrecked car. In the forest next to it, small but relatively sharp soldiers can be seen. They are carrying machine guns.
Perpetrators are apparently Russian soldiers
It is 2 p.m. and 16 minutes when the drone's camera films several cars. They are not military vehicles, but ordinary passenger cars, heading towards the center of Kiev. The first drivers apparently notice the Russian tanks and turn away - a silver-gray vehicle comes to a halt, stops. Then something terrible happens.
A civilian gets out of the car with his hands up and is shot, falling down behind his car. The perpetrators are obviously Russian soldiers. They run out of the tank position and across the roadway to the scene of the crime. They can be recognized by white ribbons. It is the distinctive mark of the Russian armed forces.
Does the footage show a war crime?
Firing on civilians - even more so on people who are obviously surrendering - is forbidden, a crime under the International Criminal Code. Is the footage genuine? After all, truth dies first in war, and all parties use propaganda for their own purposes. Images become a weapon there.
To verify the authenticity of the drone images, we are looking for the drone pilot. After many phone calls and a drive through many side streets in Kiev, we find him in a basement of the Ukrainian capital.
Drone pilot describes his observation
He calls himself Zanoza and wants to defend his country as a volunteer. In his life before the war, he dealt in electrical goods. We know his real name and age, but we have to promise not to make it public. After all, he is now fighting in the "Bugatti Company". Almost everyone here is a volunteer. Until recently, it was unthinkable for many of them that their city, their home, would be attacked.
Zanoza shows us his drone. It is a Mavic III, a professional film camera, not a military device. On the said March 7, 2022, Zanoza had the mission to observe the Russian positions on the E40 highway. And then he describes what he saw through his optics.
"I was watching the Russian tank positions on the road for a while." Zanoza, drone pilot
For a long time, he says, nothing happened. The gas station had been closed for days. Then civilian vehicles would have approached. One would have stalled and stopped.
"The driver got out of the car, put his hands up and was shot, by Russian soldiers." Zanoza, drone pilot
Later, the car would have been towed away and burned.
Authenticity of drone video can be verified on site
On the ground, we can check the video footage. They carry a time stamp. We compare the exact location on maps: Sadova Vulytsya, 2, Mriia, Kyivs'ka oblast, 08112. The location of the crime can also be found on Google Maps. The gas station, the adjacent forest, a house on the roadside - everything matches. The fact that at that time Russian forces were shelling the very nearby Kiev suburb of Iprin is also no secret.
The pictures from March 7 show the shot man being dragged away from his car into the ditch by Russian soldiers. A woman and a child were still traveling with him. They are later led by soldiers into the nearby forest. What happens to them then, the pictures do not show.
Russian President Vladimir Putin claims that there was no attack on Ukraine, that it was a "special operation" against "neo-Nazis". Civilians are not at risk, he said. The research exposes the words of the Russian ruler for what they were from the beginning - a lie.
