In a grim video released on New Year’s Day, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner’s Russian mercenary group, was filmed visiting a basement near Ukraine’s eastern front littered with the corpses of his fighters, many of them ex-prisoners who had been killed during the Fierce Battle for the town of Bakhmut , a key site in Donetsk that Russia has been trying to capture since the summer, The Guardian and News.ro reported on Tuesday.

In Prigozhin’s improvised morgue, corpses are shown on stretchers and in body bags. In the corner of one of the rooms, a pile of body bags can be seen piled up to the shoulders, and Prigozhin can be heard saying: “They’re out of contract, they’re going home next week. Preparing for shipment. On New Year’s Eve, we all work. The soldiers of Wagner who died at the front rest here. Now they are placed in zinc coffins and will return home.”

And when new bodies are loaded into the truck, Prigozhin can be heard making New Year’s wishes. Prigozhin calls the people who collect the corpses and says: “Happy birthday, good people!”.

Wagner’s group played a key role in the Russian offensive on Bakhmut. Ukrainian military personnel interviewed by The Guardian said the Wagner fighters were often used as shock troops in frontal attacks on their positions, while the newly mobilized Russians were deployed for more defensive roles.

While Ukrainian sources and Russian military blogs have long suggested that the Wagner PMC suffered heavy casualties during the months-long assault, Prigozhin’s images and comments seem to confirm that this is the case.

• Read also: Boss Wagner recognized the superiority of Ukrainians / Bakhmut is a fortress. Sometimes it takes them weeks to conquer a house

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