Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose group Wagner is closely concerned within the combating in Ukraine, welcomed the video exhibiting the brutal killing of a former member of the group.
The video surfaced over the weekend on the Grey Zone Telegram channel, which frequently reveals the actions of Wagner Group mercenaries.
It reveals how a member of the group who defected and crossed over to the Ukrainian aspect was killed with a sledgehammer. The person’s title is (and he calls himself within the video) Yevgenij Nuzhin.
Within the video, Nuzhin says: “4. September, I carried out my plan by transferring to struggle alongside the Ukrainian troops. On November 11, I used to be on the road in Kyiv when somebody hit me on the top and I misplaced consciousness.”
And he provides: “I awoke within the basement, the place they advised me they had been going to guage me.”
Inside seconds, they killed him, hitting him at the very least as soon as with a mallet.
Prigogine was requested on his Telegram channel concerning the homicide. With out immediately admitting that Wagner’s fighters carried out the assassination, he stated: “Nuzhin betrayed his folks, he betrayed his comrades, he knowingly betrayed them. He was not captured or surrendered. As a substitute, he deliberate his escape. Nužin is a traitor”.
“The Russian folks can scent betrayal: it is genetic. Therefore the feedback on social networks,” Prigozhin stated, referring to some optimistic reactions to the assassination.
In one other Telegram message, Prigozhin referred to as the video “a wonderful work by the director.”
“I want to see this story within the theater. As for the executed, it’s clear on this present that he didn’t discover happiness in Ukraine, however met unkind, albeit sincere, folks. I feel this film known as ‘A canine receives the demise of a canine.
The textual content on the Grey Zone channel accompanying the video says that “small and traitors have a detailed relationship for the ‘orchestra’ (ie Wagner). And now, out of the blue disappearing from the investigation in Kiev, the traitor obtained the standard and primordial Wagnerian punishment”.
In early September, Nuzhina was interviewed by Ukrainian journalist Yury Butusov and spoke about his give up to Ukrainian forces and his willingness to struggle on the aspect of Kyiv.
Nuzhin additionally spoke about how the Wagner group recruits prisoners to struggle in Ukraine in trade for the promise of a full pardon in Russia.
In early October, Nuzhin gave one other interview to Ukrainian journalist Ramina Eskhakzai through which she expressed her help for Ukraine and revealed extra particulars concerning the work of the Wagner Group.
In an interview, Nuzhin confirmed that he had spent 23 years in jail in Nizhny Novgorod for homicide. He was presupposed to be launched in 2027, however determined to hitch the Wagner group to struggle in Ukraine.
He additionally advised Eskhakzai, “My mother and father dwell in western Ukraine. How will you go to struggle with your loved ones?”
It’s nonetheless not clear how Nuzhin ended up in captivity.
CNN contacted Ukrainian authorities to ask whether or not Nuzhin was despatched to Russian-controlled territory in trade for the discharge of Ukrainian prisoners of struggle or was kidnapped with out his data.
The pinnacle of the Workplace of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak stated in an announcement on Friday that 45 Ukrainian troopers have returned from captivity in one other spherical of prisoner trade.
Anastasia Kashevarova, a former adviser to the top of the Russian State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, stated that fighters from the Wagner firm had been concerned within the trade, however didn’t establish them.
Requested concerning the video on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated: “Now we have no remark. We do not know what it’s or its reality. That is none of our enterprise.”