The release of convicted criminals, including the well-known “black agent” Oleksandr Tyutin, to fight in Ukraine in Wagner’s mercenary group began to cause a stir in Russia due to complaints from relatives of their victims, independent researcher Chris Owen reports.

But Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the paramilitary group, strongly denied the allegations, responding recently through the press service of his firm Concord to questions related to the recruitment of Tyutin, who was convicted of 4 murders and released after serving 6 months in prison. with Wagner’s mercenaries in Ukraine.

Tyutkin was a St. Petersburg real estate agent who was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2021 after being found guilty of ordering two murders, one of which targeted a family of four.

He was caught in 2018 after he arranged to kill his niece so he wouldn’t have to share an inheritance with her.

The “assassin” hired by Tyutin for 600,000 rubles (about $8,600) turned out to be an undercover cop who was ordered by the first man the former real estate agent tried to hire to kill his niece.

Who is the “black agent” of St. Petersburg

Tyutin was also found guilty of organizing the murder in 2005 of Dmytro Zeynalov, his business partner, his wife, their 10-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter.

The family members were shot dead before the killer delivered the “killing blow” with an axe, a crime that shocked the Russian public at the time.

Tyutin was transferred to a penal colony in Karelia, but was released on June 16 last year to join Wagner’s mercenaries, shortly after Prigozhin’s group began recruiting in Russian prisons

Despite his age (he is 66 years old), the “black agent” survived the hostilities and returned to his native St. Petersburg in December, and then went to Turkey to see his wife.

Prigozhin added that the contribution of men like Tyutin to military operations was far more important than that of recruits without criminal records, whom he contemptuously called “dandelion boys.”

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s creepy message to the Russians

“Let me explain the philosophy of involving prisoners in the war in Ukraine. Some prisoner, being a real estate agent, killed a family of 4 people. You do not know this family and have never met them. But you despise what happened,” he said in a statement released by his company, Concord, which provides catering for the Kremlin and has earned him the nickname “Putin’s chef.”

“The prisoner went to war and died. Or somehow miraculously survived. He is a criminal and is worth 3-4 times more in war than the dandelion boys who are still wet from milk. Among these dandelion boys is your son, your father or your husband,” added mercenary boss Wagner.

“You’d sooner send a murderous real estate agent off to war than your loved ones, who, unlike a murderous realtor, you’re likely to welcome home in a zinc coffin. But don’t look into the coffin, because instead of the pale powdered face that you are used to seeing at funerals, calmly waiting to be sent to heaven, you will see pieces of flesh torn by fragments of enemy weapons,” Prigozhin emphasized.

“Maybe it’s not even one person, but several, because it was impossible for them to survive in that hell and meat grinder where they died. And if, by the irony of fate, he managed to survive, then he is no longer realtor-murderer Vasya, but lucky Petya,” he added.

Mercenary boss Wagner does not want his “fighters” to be criticized

Prigozhin also provided alleged evidence of Tyutin’s role in the fighting, presenting a report he said was written by his unit commander who recommended him for the Russian Medal of Valor.

The document states that on November 6, Tyutin “performed the task of storming a fortified settlement of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, discovered a camouflaged position of Ukrainians and destroyed 7 Ukrainian soldiers with a grenade launcher.

The report also claims that Tyutin was wounded during the fighting, but refused to evacuate.

Researcher Chris Owen notes that Prigozhin is not a fan of having his actions questioned, having just this week called on the Russian parliament to ban negative media coverage of his mercenaries.

In a letter sent to the head of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, Prigozhin accused “some media, bloggers and Telegram channels” of discrediting some of his people, especially convicts whom he personally recruited from prisons to serve on Wagner, presenting them as “bad boys and criminals”.

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