Chaos in Russia
Mud fight between Prigozhin and the army – officer accuses Wagner mercenaries of torture and rape of soldiers
The head of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin (centre), with his units withdrawing from Bakhmut
© UPI Photo / Imago Images
The bitter power struggle between the Wagner troops and the Russian military continues to escalate. Now an officer is accusing Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mercenaries of several serious crimes.
The mud fight between the regular Russian army and the so-called mercenary troop Wagner goes into the next round. After Yevgeny Prigozhin’s unit captured a lieutenant colonel of the Russian armed forces and forced him to plead guilty, the officer in turn has made serious allegations against the mercenaries and their leader Prigozhin.
Roman Wenewitin explained in a video message, Wagner mercenaries “captured him, locked him in the basement and abused him” for no reason. According to his own statements, he was the commander of the 72nd brigade of the Russian armed forces, which for a certain time had taken positions in the direction of Bakhmut. From day one there was tension between his soldiers and the Wagner mercenaries, Venevitin said.
The men under Prigozhin’s command behaved boldly and provocatively. There were constant death threats. But they would not have been content with threats.
Direct accusations against Yevgeny Prigozhin
“The fighters of Wagner’s private army stole two T80 tanks, four artillery pieces, a kamaz (truck) and a BMP infantry fighting vehicle,” Venevitin enumerates. To date, the weapons have not been returned to the Russian Defense Ministry. “The Wagner private army thinks they are war trophies.”
The successes of his troupe, which Prigozhin constantly talks about, are simply made up, says Venevitin. In his video message he addresses the mercenary boss directly: “You discredit the Russian armed forces. You are trying to present the Wagner private army as the only effective organization and military unit in this conflict. But I have a question: Would you have succeeded Soledar ( the Russian name for Bakhmut) if there weren’t contract soldiers, volunteers and Achmat units (…) fighting on the broad front? Would you then have an opportunity to do political PR?” the former commander asks, implying that this would not have been the case.
If the Wagner mercenaries cooperated with the Russian army, then there would be far fewer casualties in this war – and “more territories,” believes Wenewitin. “But the mercenary force does not consider it necessary to inform us of their maneuvers or the abandonment of certain areas.”
Soldiers allegedly tortured and raped
But the lieutenant’s allegations go even further: “There were cases of our fighters being kidnapped. They were tortured and their honor humiliated,” says Venevitin, meaning rape. He tells of a specific case from his battalion. The soldier was “held starving and naked on a cold floor in a basement. They sprayed acid and other chemicals in his eyes, which temporarily blinded him. They poured gasoline on him and held a lighter near him .”
A soldier from another unit was beaten and raped. “In view of his hopelessness, he committed suicide.”
Head of the Wagner mercenaries admits to crimes himself
Wenewitin himself was captured by the Wagner troupe and shown on video. The recording shows an alleged confession by the former commander of the Russian army. He would have ordered his subordinates to shoot at a Wagner mercenary car. He gave the order “out of personal dislike,” he says in the corresponding video posted online by the Prigozhin men.
The Wagner boss himself claimed that Wenewin’s soldiers had mined the road on which his men were moving. Whereupon the mercenaries disarmed the Russian military unit. The incident is said to have happened in May.
chaos and lawlessness
In an attempt to blackmail the Russian army, Prigozhin made no secret of the fact that he had official military units disarmed and their commander captured. Both procedures constitute serious violations and should, in theory, result in severe penalties. But like so much in Russia, the legislation is only theoretical.
In practice, Prigozhin will continue to be given a free hand. There are no investigations – neither into the allegations of torture and rape of Russian soldiers nor into the case of Venevitin’s self-declared capture. And so speculation is mounting: Vladimir Putin has long since lost control of his mercenary leader, who is hiding behind his men on the front line, say some. The Kremlin boss is just waiting for a suitable opportunity to get rid of Prigozhin, others say.
Either way, the mudslinging between Prigozhin and the Russian military leadership shows above all the chaos and lawlessness in which Russia is sinking ever further.