Wagner mercenaries in the ntv interview
“I’m the only one who survived”
12/06/2022 at 6:23 p.m
Sergej P. is one of thousands of Russian prisoners recruited by the Wagner mercenary group for the war in Ukraine. After three days on the job, he was taken prisoner in the Ukraine. In the ntv interview he talks about his motives. However, he does not see a way back to Russia.
In recent months, the Russian Defense Ministry and the Wagner mercenary group have recruited thousands of prisoners for the war in Ukraine. It is not known how many prisoners were sent to the combat zone. According to the opposition portal “mediazona” However, in September and October alone, the number of detainees in Russian penal colonies fell by 23,000.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin lures the prisoners with the promise of a pardon if they survive the deployment at the front. But those who end up in Ukrainian captivity and then return to Russia on an exchange risk brutal retaliation. In mid-November, for example, the former mercenary Yevgeny Nushin was executed in front of the camera after his return to Russia. Prigozhin welcomed the murder of the “traitor,” as he called the former combatant.
Sergei P. fears a similar fate. He, too, was recruited by the mercenary group in a Russian prison and sent to war, the man says in an interview with ntv, which was arranged with the help of Ukrainian state agencies. Now P. is in captivity in the Ukraine – and he definitely doesn’t want to go back home, although he has family there. In Russia, the man may face extrajudicial execution.
“There was no specific mention of war”
However, when he went to war, P. hoped for something else. Wagner members who recruited inmates at his prison “said that if we voluntarily join the group, we would be pardoned. We would get a salary and our criminal record would be wiped out,” explains P. The inmates had 24 hours to think had, he continues. For security reasons, the man did not want to give his full name. ntv was able to clarify his identity without a doubt, but protects it for security reasons.
According to the man, it was initially not entirely clear that he would swap his prison cell for a trench in Ukraine. “There was no talk of war, in general it wasn’t specific. There was talk of villages, of any kind of cleansing,” claims the former Russian prisoner, who is now in Ukrainian captivity. “There was no specific mention of war.”
Unit “worn out” after only three days
Before being deployed at the front, P. received military training, but this was very brief. The recruited prisoners were taken to Rostov-on-Don, a city in southern Russia not far from the Ukrainian border. “We clean guns there, but without cartridges – the guns were empty,” says P. in the ntv interview. “We ran and jumped.” There was no target practice: “There was nothing to shoot for, just guns.”
After that, P. was sent to Ukraine within a group of ten men. “Our task was to go into the forest to conquer an area”. But the new Wagner fighters could not fulfill the order. After three days in the forest, his unit was “ruined out,” P. now says. “I’m the only one who survived”.
Eventually, the man was captured by Ukrainian forces. Reports have been mounting for months that Russia is using inexperienced conscripts and conscripted prisoners as cannon fodder to lure Ukrainians from their positions.