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<p><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/hundreds-of-russian-troops-are-being-held-captive-in-basements-for-refusing-to-fight-report-says">Russian troops</a> executed one of their own men in <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/vladimir-putin-unleashes-hell-on-kharkiv-after-embarrassing-defeat-in-battle">Kharkiv</a> after the Feb. 24 invasion and then concealed his identity so they could use him in an elaborate propaganda ploy.</p>
<p>That’s according to a report released Wednesday by the independent news outlet <a href="https://t.me/svobodnieslova/311">Verstka</a>, which tracked down the identity of the young soldier nearly six months after his death in the Kharkiv region.</p>
<p>Ivan Levankov was killed on the first day of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, as reports of Russian troops targeting civilians began to trickle out. And his death at the time was no secret—it was captured practically in real time by a Ukrainian woman named Karolina Perlifon who posted footage from the dramatic scene on Instagram.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-russian-troops-executed-one-of-their-own-for-helping-ukraine-civiliansthen-covered-it-up?source=articles&via=rss">Read more at The Daily Beast.</a></p><!-- /wp:html -->
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Russian troops executed one of their own men in Kharkiv after the Feb. 24 invasion and then concealed his identity so they could use him in an elaborate propaganda ploy.
That’s according to a report released Wednesday by the independent news outlet Verstka, which tracked down the identity of the young soldier nearly six months after his death in the Kharkiv region.
Ivan Levankov was killed on the first day of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, as reports of Russian troops targeting civilians began to trickle out. And his death at the time was no secret—it was captured practically in real time by a Ukrainian woman named Karolina Perlifon who posted footage from the dramatic scene on Instagram.
