Criminals and murderers who were recruited to fight in Ukraine, discovered that they had been lied to and sold that they would fight foreigners. “American mercenaries, Polish mercenaries, French mercenaries, told us they were Nazis,” said one of the Wagner forces held by Ukrainian intelligence. “Our brothers were killed in huge numbers, there were mountains of corpses”
For months, the battle for the eastern city of Akhmat has been one of the most dangerous front lines in Russia’s war in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s forces are trying to wear down Ukrainian resistance and capture the city.
Dozens of men from the Kremlin-backed paramilitary group Wagner, recruited from Russia’s notorious penal colonies. A reporter from the American CBS network met two of them, they were captured in eastern Ukraine and are now being held by the military intelligence of Ukraine.
Sergei was in the middle of a 19-year prison sentence for murder in a penal colony, Kach Wagner’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhin visited the prisons and offered six months of service at the front for Russia, and “then you can go free.”
“I had to leave prison one way or another,” he told CBS. “Ten years is a long time.” So, he made a deal with the devil – fighting at the front in exchange for freedom and cash.
He was barely aware that there was a war going on in Ukraine, Sergei was told that he would be fighting foreigners there. “American mercenaries, Polish mercenaries, French, told us they were Nazis,” he said.
Vlad, Wagner’s second man, had already served two years of a three-year sentence for assault, but the promise of early release, an expunged criminal record and a $3,500 salary proved too tempting. After only two weeks of training, he said he was sent to fight against Ukrainian tanks with nothing more than a machine gun.
“Our brothers were killed in huge numbers,” he said, “there were mountains of corpses.” He said he saw firsthand what was done to those who did not fight. “One of the fighters was too scared to fight, they made him dig his own grave and shot him.”
“Everything they told us were complete lies,” Sergey said. “Ukrainians did not want to kill us – we came to Ukraine to kill them.” They insisted they had committed no war crimes, and both men said that if they could turn back time, they would choose a Russian prison cell over the carnage of the Ukrainian battlefield.