Two former Wagner PMC mercenary commanders testified how they had been ordered to execute Ukrainian children and civilians, shoot deserters, and kill prisoners of war often at the direction of Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, according to a video published by Russian human rights NGO Gulagu.
Azamat Yaldarov and Aleksey Savich, former convicts recruited by Wagner as part of a program to enlist Russian prisoners to participate in the invasion of Ukraine in exchange for pardons, reportedly shared their testimonies with Gulagu founder Vladimir Osechkin over the course of a week.
Yaldarov claimed that Wagner head Prigozhin gave the order to "clean up" during fighting in Soledar and kill civilians in the area, including women and children.
"I don't want war. I don't want bloodshed. I hold a cigarette in this hand, and with this hand, I carried out the order -- I killed the children," said Yaldarov. "We went killing everyone there women, men, pensioners."
Other alleged incidents?
He related another alleged incident in which children were deliberately shot in mid-March.
In early February, Savich said that in Bakhmut they had been given orders to kill from among a group of people older than 15. The ex-mercenary said that his unit had killed around two dozen people, around half of them teenagers. They weren't armed and didn't wear uniforms, he told Osechkin. In another incident, they had been ordered to clear a residential building of all people, including civilians.
Savich alleged that on orders of his superiors, he had thrown a grenade into a pit filled with dozens of bodies and wounded prisoners in Bakhmut in late January, and to destroy the bodies doused them with gasoline and set fire to them. The pit also allegedly contained deserters.
In one instance, Savich said some 70 prisoner-soldiers had been shot for refusing to follow orders. He said that near the end of their contracts, he and other prisoner-soldiers had been threatened by Wagner not to meet with members of the press.
The Institute for the Study of War said on Monday that the interviews highlighted how Wagner has "institutionalized systematic brutality as part of its fundamental modus operandi."
Prigozhin denied that his forces had committed the litany of crimes alleged by the two men.
"Regarding the execution of children, of course, no one ever shoots civilians or children," he said on Monday.
In a Wagner-affiliated Telegram group, a message said that they were drunk, and said that some of those they identified as shot deserters were in fact alive. Prigozhin’s press service published a video of one of the convict soldiers that had allegedly been executed.
"If at least one of these accusations against me is confirmed, I am ready to bear responsibility, in accordance with any laws and regulations," said Prigozhin on Tuesday.
The oligarch on Tuesday accused Gulagu of working with Western intelligence agencies to create false accusations against Wagner. Osechkin denied that the men had been influenced by the CIA or other services on Monday. Prigozhin threatened that Osechikin and others would be arrested for their involvement in such falsifications.
"Everyone who participated in it, including Osechkin, we must make efforts to find him, arrest him and punish him accordingly," said Prigozhin. "This is an attempt to destroy us from within, and we will look for who is behind this."
Gulagu claims to be a project against corruption and torture in Russia and has been active since 2011.
On Monday, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that 86% of Ukrainians who had been prisoners of war had been subject to torture by Russia.
The testimonies are on the heels of the publications of videos allegedly depicting the execution of captured Ukrainian soldiers. On April 12, Reuters reported that a video circulated online showed apparent Russian soldiers beheading a captive with a knife. In March, a video was circulated that showed a Ukrainian soldier being shot after declaring "glory to Ukraine."