RUSSIA: The leader of the Russian military group Wagner has defended a heinous video apparently recording the death of a mercenary who defected to Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin’s ally, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said that the unverified footage of 55-year-old Yevgeny Nuzhin being bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer was “a dog’s death for a dog.”
The convicted murderer was declared a traitor when he revealed in September that he had switched sides in the war.
In the video, he claims that he was struck on the head while he was roaming the streets of the Ukrainian capital city, Kyiv, and then woke up in a cellar.
However, Nuzhin had been held as a prisoner of war by Ukraine, and it is unclear how he was able to walk freely in Kyiv.
Warning: This article includes graphic, distressing details
The video footage of the horrific slaughter was posted over the weekend on the Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel Grey Zone.
Nuzhin can be heard narrating the details of his association with Wagner. He rose to the top of the group after being recruited in August. He said he intended to switch sides and “fight against the Russians,” but was later captured by the Ukrainians.
Following the attack on him in Kyiv on November 11, he lost consciousness and woke up in a cellar where the video was recorded.
After Nuzhin narrates his story, he is struck with a sledgehammer and then falls to the ground. He is ultimately beaten to death.
Prighozin said that Nuzhin was a traitor and had “betrayed his people, betrayed his comrades.”
In a sarcastic tone, the Wagner chief described the video as “excellent directorial work that’s watchable in one sitting.”
“I think this movie is called A Dog’s Death for a Dog,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has attempted to distance itself from the Wagner group and the video itself, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that “it was not our business.”
Prigozhin is a former restauranteur and close ally of the Russian President, who was actively engaged in the Ukraine conflict, setting up the Wagner Group, a mercenary recruiting operation, in 2014. He publicly acknowledged the company in September.
The emergence of the group caused a huge fighting spirit in eastern Ukraine in 2014, when the Russian forces were battling Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, and it has since been involved in fighting in Syria and several other African countries.
Since the inception of the “special military operation” in Ukraine, the group has been involved in heinous massacres and duly accused by Ukraine of committing crimes against humanity.
A video from September shows Prigozhin recruiting former inmates and convicts for Wagner at a Russian prison.
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