The head of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner said that his mercenaries will no longer take Ukrainian prisoners of war, but will kill all “enemies” in response to what he called the execution of one of his men by Kyiv forces. AFP and News.ro report.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Wagner’s Russian mercenariesPhoto: Handout / AFP / Profimedia

Now, Wagner’s mercenaries are on the front lines of the battle for Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, which has been wreaking havoc for several months.

“We do not know the names of our wounded, who were shot by some poor Ukrainians. But we will kill everyone on the battlefield. We will no longer take prisoners,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Sunday in an audio message published on Telegram by the press service of his Concordia catering company, for which he earned the nickname “Putin’s cook.”

“When you take a prisoner, you start by taking care of him, treating him, not harming him, and after a while you send him home through an exchange or something like that,” Yevgeny Prigozhin explained.

He was reacting to another audio recording published by another Wagner-affiliated Telegram account, presented as a conversation between the Ukrainian military giving the order to shoot a captured PMK fighter. AFP could not confirm the authenticity of the latest recording.

Footage has also circulated on social media showing a militant, believed to be Wagner, ambushing and killing a Ukrainian fighter in a trench at close range.

Wagner’s mercenaries accused of war crimes

The Wagner Group, which has been accused of numerous abuses in various spheres of activity around the world, is now on the front lines of the months-long battle for Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv and Moscow have regularly accused each other of mistreatment of prisoners, which are war crimes.

In mid-April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi condemned the actions of Russian “monsters” after the publication of a shocking video on social networks showing the beheading of an alleged Ukrainian prisoner of war.

Yevgeny Prigozhin rejected accusations by an NGO and a deserter from his group who claimed that those who executed the Ukrainian soldier seen in the video were members of Wagner.

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