A Russian man who said he killed children and other civilians while working for the private military company Wagner in Ukraine appears to have recanted that claim, suggesting he was blackmailed into doing so, CNN reports.

Former prisoner Azamat Uldarov stated this in a video message to the Russian news agency RIA-FAN. It is unclear whether the interview was conditional.

He and another former prisoner, Oleksiy Savichev, previously gave long and controversial interviews to the Russian rights group Gulagu.net, saying they were among tens of thousands of Wagner fighters recruited from Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine.

Speaking to Gulagu founder Volodymyr Osyechkin, Uldarov said he shot the young woman, calling it a “management decision.”

“I wasn’t allowed to let anyone out alive because my orders were to kill everything in my path,” he said, estimating the girl to be five or six years old.

In an interview with RIA-FAN, which is attributed to the leader of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Uldarov stated that he was drunk when he gave the interview and claimed that Osechkin blackmailed him by saying that he was in prison .

When asked by RIA-FAN, “You were forced to say what you said in the video, correct?”. answered Uldarov: “This is not only correct, but also true [înjurătură] right. I had to say it because I had no choice.”

“I said everything I was told,” Uldarov said later.

“Prigogin is a cool guy,” he added, giving a thumbs up. “He saved our lives.”

But Gulag native Osechkin, who lives in France, told CNN he stands by the content of his interviews with the two men, citing Uldarov’s denials as evidence of how quickly dissenting voices are silenced in Russia.

Osechkin also stated that both interviewees, Uldarova and Savicheva, were threatened with death if they did not recant their statements made before him.

Savychev previously stated that his unit was ordered to kill any male over the age of 15.