Wagner mercenaries claim to have killed Ukrainian children

‘She is screaming, she is a little kid, you know – five, maybe six years old. And I took a kill shot, you know? I was told to let no one out’, said Azamat Uldarov, blowing cigarette smoke at his phone camera.

Yesterday Russian human rights organization Gulagu.net published a video with two ex-convicts and ex-commanders of Wagner Group subdivisions – Azamat Uldarov and Aleksey Savichev – confessing their potential war crimes in Ukraine. Both Russians were recruited by Wagner’s founder Evgeny Prigozhin in penal colonies and pardoned by Vladimir Putin’s decree last year in exchange for fighting at war. 

‘I hold a cigarette in this hand. I carried out an order with this hand – I killed children’, continued Uldarov. ‘What we did when we entered Soledar and Bakhmut, that was such a scene. We were the last to arrive – a unit of 150 people. We were told to kill everyone in our way. So we did. There were women, men, pensioners and children’, said Uldarov. The man also said he ‘cleaned up’ a basement in Bakhmut with 300-400 civilians – about 40 of them were children. According to him, it happened on 18 March.

Uldarov said Russian mercenaries also had no mercy towards Ukrainian prisoners of war. He said only three of 100 PoWs were usually left alive: women-snipers and commanders. The rest were violently assassinated. ‘We cut their throats with a knife on video. When Prigozhin said to use a sledgehammer, we took sledgehammers and smashed them. This is Prigozhin’s favourite method’, said Uldarov.

The evidence of possible war crimes against Ukrainian PoWs has been emerging for months. Last week, a video was published on social media showing what appeared to be a Russian fighter decapitating a Ukrainian soldier with a knife. It was one of the dozens of videos of public executions of Ukrainian military personnel. They included cutting off the head, genitals, ears, nose, limbs and phalanges on the hands. Ukrainian investigators have already identified some of the assassins. ‘We were eliminating them. We did not demand an explanation because we are nobody. We were given a command, and we destroyed them. Because we are Putin’s team’, said Uldarov.

Another ex-convict Russian, Aleksey Savichev, was appointed intelligence commander in the Wagner group after spending 30 years behind bars. Savichev said he was killing Ukrainians from fear that he himself could be killed if he did not obey orders. ‘We were told to shoot all Ukrainians aged 15 and over’, he said. When asked how many civilians they killed in February 2023, Savichev replied that 15-year-old Ukrainians ‘are difficult to call civilians’. Savichev said on 23 February this year, he was one of those shooting over 20 unarmed civilians, half of which were 15-16 years old. ‘We had orders to clear the houses. There was no such thing as getting the civilians out, and I didn’t give a damn about who was there’, said Savichev. 

Savichev also said he threw 30 grenades into the pit with about 60 wounded and dead Ukrainian prisoners of war and Russian soldiers who refused to carry out orders to kill Ukrainians. According to him, it happened in January this year between the barracks and the cannery in Bakhmut. ‘There were about 60 people. Some were still breathing. I was told to come, blow everyone up and burn the remains. I am not going to check how many people were breathing there, how many were alive’, said Savichev. 

Evgeny Prigozhin, as usual, denied the accusations. He said he was too busy to watch the one-hour-long video completely but may check it later. Prigozhin also stressed that the Wagner group never shot civilians or children, and they came just ‘to save them from the [Zelensky’s] regime’. 

This rhetoric is common of the Russian command, who believe the end justifies their means. The Wagner Group has links to the Russian armed forces and receives money from the Kremlin’s defence budget. Their fighters are as guilty of killing Ukrainian civilians as the Russian government.

Both Uldarov and Savichev tried to present themselves as victims of a cruel command who instructed them to shoot children. But they have both chosen to stay in Russia and talk about joining the regular Russian army to continue fighting the war. 

The day after the video was published, Prigozhin appealed to Savichev and said Wagner group had been looking for him for 24 hours, ‘but so far could not find’ him. Prigozhin asked Savichev to contact him and explain ‘why he gave this falsification, who was behind it, how he was being blackmailed, and whether he was set any other tasks’. ‘Come and tell us everything. I give you a guarantee: you will leave alive and unharmed’, said Prigozhin.

But, in the grand scheme of the conflict, Prigozhin nor Putin will be worried about the testimonies of a handful of Russian mercenaries. For now, they are untouchable by the international justice system. And most Russian forces will stay silent and keep killing Ukrainians out of hatred or fear, for the punishment for treason or disobedience is always the same: death.