Are Ukrainian soldiers being buried alive for refusing to fight?

I got the above video from an anonymous Twitter user. The full conversation is below.

There’s a few red flags here. The user who sent it to me has no followers and isn’t following anybody.

This is a classic “scattering” account, where Russian disinformation specialists are paid to scatter disinformation to see what gains interest.

Russian misinformation has three strategies:

• Scattering - They seed misinformation on fringe websites / Telegram channels

• Harvesting - Unpaid Russian sophists and supporters harvest this “intelligence” and post the disinformation that believe is fact on more mainstream channels (Twitter / Established Telegram)

• Amplification - Western media or pro-Russian users amplify this information by writing a mainstream article about it or reposting this on websites like Facebook or TikTok.

There’s a few issues with this message. The first is

I’ve been hearing a lot about the increasing number of Ukrainian soldiers being buried alive

So… citing an increasing number and only providing one example.

there has been a couple videos of it

But then only sending one video.

Common thing in all these videos seems to be that it's generally Ukrainian soldiers that do not have standard issue kits

First off, no Ukrainian seems to have a standard issue kit. They all seem to be fighting with whatever they have. Second, it’s a very convenient way to explain why the soldiers (or actors) in this video are not wearing standard uniforms if this were staged.

There’s a few issues with this method of execution. The first is labor and calories. Food is a weapon. In combat you need about 4,200 calories per day. In winter combat you need roughly 10% more - between 4500 and 4600 calories.

1. Even though this is a small trench, it still probably took about two hours to dig. Digging takes about 500 calories per hour, so I think we’re looking at using 1/4th of a soldier’s daily caloric allowance to execute a soldier. This is very inefficient when a bullet would have fixed the problem for under a calorie.

2. Unless this is old footage, it’s been hovering around freezing in Ukraine for a few weeks now. This would make digging even harder, using up more calories.

3. If you have the time to dig a hole, you probably aren’t near the front. Yet one of these soldiers is still wearing body armor. This is the last thing I would want to wear if I had to dig or fill in a hole.

4. Even though it is winter, you will heat up fast digging or filling in a hole. These soldiers are wearing way too many layers.

I contacted a native Ukrainian speaker who said that the language used was Ukrainian, but it sounded like the person speaking had his “lip bitten.” Perhaps this is an artifact from AI generated audio?

All of that being said, I doubt that this video is authentic because it doesn’t make tactical sense, the soldiers are wearing the wrong clothes, and the ground is too hard to dig and not worth the effort.