Wagner Group execute deserter with sledgehammer, release video

Crimea: In a horrifying execution video, a guy appears to have been traded prisoners with the renowned pro-Putin Wagner private army before having his life taken away. Prior to being returned to Russia in a prisoner swap, Dmitry Yakushchenko, 44, appeared to have put down his guns and crossed the frontline into Ukraine. Behind the 44-year-old who stated: “At the front, I realised this was not my war,” is a man who has not been identified and is holding a sledgehammer. The combatant said, “Today I was in the streets of Dnipro, where I took a blow to the head and passed out. “I woke up in this room where I was told that I was going to be tried.” The enormous sledgehammer was then slammed into the prisoner’s head. Dmitry appears to be hit twice more in the video, which is subsequently blurred and published on the Grey Zone Telegram channel connected to Wagner. After being placed on the front lines, the soldier from Crimea was initially examined by Ukrainians who asked him how he managed to escape. He replied: “I crawled somewhere and laid down till the gunfire stopped, drones were flying.” I started my fourth day with my machine gun, a few magazines, and a few grenades. After some time, he “turned out to be on the Ukrainian side,” he said, adding that he encouraged any other Russians in a like situation to defect as well. According to the Cheka-OGPU Telegram channel, the Ukrainians included Dmitry in a significant prisoner of war swap earlier this month in which Russia also returned the bodies of British humanitarian workers Chris Parry, 28, and Andrew Bagshaw, 47. He was a convicted killer and robber who served 19 years in prison before being freed, according to reports in Russia, to participate in Putin’s war. He was enlisted as part of a Russian plot to free murderers, rapists, and other criminals in exchange for them fighting against Ukraine for six months, with the promise of a pardon. Before Crimea was annexed by Putin in 2014, when it was still a part of Ukraine, Yakushchenko appears to have been found guilty of murder there. He was subsequently moved to a Russian prison in Engels, where he was eventually freed as part of Putin’s contentious prison reform programme. The murder reminds me of the incident precisely three months ago when Yevgeny Nuzhin, a 55-year-old convicted killer, was killed with a sledgehammer. After receiving Nuzhin from the Ukrainians in a formal exchange of prisoners of war, Wagner received him back and decided to impose its own rules. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the commander of the Wagner organisation and a close Putin ally, has previously vowed to kill “traitors” who abandon the front line and supported Nuzhin’s slaying, as have Putin’s propagandists. Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .