Wagner Group mercenaries have admitted to “shooting a five-year-old girl in the head”, executing Ukrainian civilians in their dozens and killing people with sledgehammers in a tell-all interview. Azamat Uldarov and Alexei Savichev, both ex-convicts pardoned by Vladimir Putin, told Gulagu.net they had been personally ordered by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to slaughter civilians and refrain from taking prisoners.
The shocking claims have led to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office opening up an investigation, as the country is still recovering from a horrific video published last week purporting to show a Wagner Group soldier beheading a POW.
Azamat Uldarov, an ex-convict from the Penitentiary colony № 13 of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, told the Russian outlet that he had killed a five or six-year-old girl when he entered Soledar and Bakhmut.
Visibly drunk and smoking on camera, the Wagnerite also claimed he was instructed to “kill everyone – women, men, pensioners and children”.
He said: “I executed the order with this hand, I killed the children. You understand, by order. The fact that we … We were given the command to wipe out and destroy everyone.
“We went 150 Wagnerites and killed everyone – women, men, pensioners and children, in particular small – five-year-olds.”
He added that he “cleared” the basement of a nine-storey building in Bakhmut with roughly 400 people inside, including 40 people.
Uldarov also admitted that the “Wagnerians” do not take prisoners and practise killing Ukrainian soldiers.
He said: “Mainly with a knife. We cut the throat. We film it. When Prigozhin said sledgehammer, we took a sledgehammer and killed with a sledgehammer. This is his method. He is a terrible person.” He claimed this took place in March 2023.
Alexei Savichev, an ex-convict from the Penitentiary colony № 1 of the Voronezh Oblast, who was pardoned by Putin’s decree of 02 September 2022, also admitted to committing atrocities.
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Express.co.uk has not been able to independently verify the claims made by both Wagner mercenaries nor if they were in fact commanders.
However, we have seen penal documents confirming that they were pardoned by Vladimir Putin on the dates suggested.
In a statement on Telegram, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine said it was “verifying information about the commission of crimes by the commanders and members of the so-called ‘Wagner’ PMC.”
The mercenary outfit stationed in Bakhmut has been accused on multiple occasions of torture and war crimes in Ukraine.