ASamat Uldarov confessed to killing children in Ukraine. Now he has withdrawn his statement. He is one of two men who claimed in a video released Monday that they killed civilians in Ukraine for the Russian mercenary group Wagner.
He was blackmailed into making the statement by a journalist, Asamat Uldarov told the Russian propaganda site RIA FAN. Like “Wagner”, it is controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin and has been on the European Union’s sanctions list since last week.
From prison to the front
Uldarov and Alexei Savichev had previously said in several conversations with Russian human rights group Gulagu.net founder Vladimir Osechkin that they were among tens of thousands of fighters recruited from Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine. Ossechkin released documents intended to prove that both were actually there. Uldarov and Savichev said they felt guilty and wanted to tell about the atrocities in Bakhmut and the Donetsk region.
In the 80-minute video, Uldarow says he shot a five or six-year-old girl. “I was not allowed to let anyone out alive because my orders were to kill everything that stood in my way.” The order came directly from Prigozhin. Now Uldarov claims he was drunk when he gave the interview. In addition, Ossechkin blackmailed him about his time in prison.
The human rights activist, who lives in France, told the American broadcaster CNN that he stands by the substance of his conversations with the two men. Uldarov’s retreat shows how quickly dissenting voices in Russia are silenced. According to Ossechkin, his sources have received death threats if they do not retract their statements. Among other things, Savichev had said that his unit had received orders to kill all men who were at least 15 years old. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office has launched an investigation into possible war crimes based on the video.