Ukrainian soldiers have likened Wagner recruits to zombies and described how drugged ex-cons climbed over the bodies of their comrades during a wave of brutal attacks.
The Kremlin’s private military company bolstered its numbers by giving jailed criminals in Russia a six-month war contract, promising them freedom at the end of their service if they survive the horrific attack.
The horde of murderers, rapists, thieves and gangsters who now populate the Russian military with little training are used as suicidal human battering rams to breach Ukraine’s first lines of defense before the more experienced soldiers follow in their wake.
Speaking from the besieged town of Bakhmut, Ukrainian soldiers Andriy and Borisych said they fought hundreds of Wagner fighters for weeks in a conflict of attrition.
Speaking from the besieged town of Bakhmut, Ukrainian soldiers Andriy and Borisych said they fought hundreds of Wagner fighters for weeks in a conflict of attrition
Andriy told CNN: “They climb over the bodies of their friends and step on them.
“It looks like there’s a very, very high possibility that they’d be on drugs before the attack.”
In one particularly gruesome battle, Andriy said he was a group of 20 soldiers who fought non-stop waves of 200 Russians for 10 hours.
He said their AK-47 rifles got so hot from the constant firing that they had to keep changing them.
The fighter added: “Our machine gunner almost went insane from shooting at them. And he said, ‘I know I shot him, but he doesn’t fall.’ And after a while, maybe bleeding to death, he just falls down.’
As Wagner troops charge forward, they dig foxholes while being supported by artillery to consolidate their territorial gains.
A former Wagner commander who fled to Norway has even apologized for the horrors in Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, has been recruiting Russian convicts for the war effort
Ukrainian soldiers dig a trench near Bakhmut where attrition battles with Wagner fighters were stationed
Pictured is the PMC Wagner Center in Saint Petersburg, the headquarters of the private army
Andrei Medvedev, who fled across the Russian-Norwegian border on January 13, said he witnessed the killing and ill-treatment of Russian prisoners recruited by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s murderous militia.
He said he fled across the Arctic border, climbing through barbed wire fences and dodging a border patrol with dogs while hearing gunshots from guards through a forest and across the frozen river that separates the two countries.
The 26-year-old is now seeking asylum in Norway.
“Many consider me a scoundrel, a criminal, a murderer,” Medvedev said in an interview. “First of all, I want to say sorry over and over again, and while I don’t know how it would be received, I want to say I’m sorry.
“I want to explain that I’m not that person. Yes, I served with Wagner. There are some moments (in my story) that people don’t like that I even joined them, but nobody is born smart.
Medvedev said he wanted to speak about his experiences in the war so that “the perpetrators of their crimes in Ukraine will be punished”.
“I have decided to take a public stand against this to help ensure that perpetrators are punished in certain cases and I will try to do at least a little bit.”
Andrei Medvedev (pictured), who fled across the Russian-Norwegian border on January 13, said he witnessed the killing and ill-treatment of Russian prisoners
Medvedev said he joined Wagner in July 2022 on a four-month contract and during that time witnessed two people who didn’t want to fight being shot dead in front of newly recruited prisoners.
“The most terrible? To realize that there are people who consider themselves your countrymen and who could come and kill you instantly or on someone’s orders,” he said.
“Your own people. That was probably the scariest thing.”
Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, previously said Medvedev worked in one of Wagner’s Norwegian units and “mistreated prisoners.”
“Be careful, he’s very dangerous,” Prigozhin said. Wagner did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
In Bakhmut, Ukrainian special forces, the National Guard and an artillery unit worked together to eliminate an attacking platoon of Wagner mercenaries.
In Bakhmut, Ukrainian special forces, the National Guard and an artillery unit worked together to eliminate an attacking platoon of Wagner mercenaries
Images filmed by a drone show the area is a homestead where a squad of Wagner mercenaries was spotted, according to Ukrainian military officials
A Russian soldier exits a building before the area appears to be hit by artillery fire.
Images filmed by a drone show the area is a homestead where a squad of Wagner mercenaries was spotted, according to Ukrainian military officials.
The area will then continue to be shelled and the buildings damaged.
Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Hanna Malyar said on Wednesday evening that there was fierce fighting in eastern Ukraine and Russian troops were trying to advance near the strategically important city of Lyman.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces are trying to make gains to show on the February 24 anniversary of the invasion.
Zelenskyy said: “There has been a significant increase in the occupier’s offensive operations on the front in the east of our country. The situation has become more difficult.”
This morning, rescuers search for survivors in the rubble of a residential building in eastern Ukraine after it was destroyed by a Russian attack on Thursday.
At least three people were killed and 20 injured on Wednesday when a Russian missile struck an apartment building in central Kramatorsk in Ukraine’s eastern industrial Donetsk region.