Wagner cemetery: Video shows the final resting place of Vladimir Putin’s criminal army

Images have emerged of the final resting place of Vladimir Putin’s criminal army who died fighting in the Ukraine with the promise of winning his freedom.

Grave after grave has been filled at the Krasnodar cemetery, where criminals, released from prison to join the invading Moscow forces, are being buried.

Tens of thousands of murderers, rapists, thieves and drug dealers have been freed and promised full freedom if they live to fight in Ukraine for six months, no matter how serious their sentence.

But the massacre has been immense, fueling accusations that Putin’s commanders are cynically using the convicts, mostly recruited by the notorious Kremlin-loyal Wagner private army, as cannon fodder to preserve the army’s regular troops. Russian.

The images came as a former Wagner commander, who had fought in Ukraine, said he fled to Norway in fear for his life and is now seeking asylum.

Andrei Medvedev, who joined the group on July 6, 2022 on a four-month contract, said in a video posted by rights group Gulagu.net that he crossed the Norwegian border before being stopped by Norwegian police.

Medvedev, an orphan who joined the Russian army and served in prison before joining Wagner, said he had run away from the group after witnessing the killing of captured Wagner deserters.

“I am afraid of dying in agony,” Medvedev told Vladimir Osechkin, founder of the human rights group Gulagu.net, who said he had helped Medvedev leave Russia after he approached the group in fear for his life.

Wagner has given defectors good reason to be afraid. In November, Russian inmate turned Wagner fighter Yevgeny Nuzhin, who switched sides in the Ukraine war, was executed with a sledgehammer, a harrowing torture that circulated online.

Wagner’s warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin described Nuzhin as a traitor, and Vladimir Putin’s close ally said a “dog gets a dog’s death” in response to the clip.

Medvedev said that Nuzhin had been part of his unit.

The Russian president this week praised his “prisoner army” and his spokesman declared that Russia “must and does know its heroes.”

The fast-growing new cemetery on Bakinskaya in the Krasnodar region is one of numerous cemeteries across Russia where Wagner fighters rest.

More than 120 graves are visible in images of the cemetery, filled with victims from across Russia, some named, some not. Many more burials are expected imminently.

Five months ago, it was an open field, with no graves, said Krasnodar activist Vitaly Votanovsky.

Now it is filling up fast with the private military company Wagner. [PMC] fighters whose relatives do not claim the remains, or who previously requested to be buried here, near a church in Goryachiy Klyuch, seen as the private military company’s place of worship.

Prigozhin, himself an ex-convict who is now Wagner’s billionaire boss, confirmed that this site was allocated for the burial of his fighters.

“There are graves of those who, for various reasons, wrote in their statement that in the event of death they wanted to be buried near the chapel of the Wagner PMC in Goryachiy Klyuch,” he said.

‘Since there are no burial places near the chapel itself, with the support of the administration of the Krasnodar region, a plot was allocated in the [nearby village of Bakinskaya].

He left a bouquet of flowers at the grave of a fighter, Denis Glazkov, who died on December 1, 2022.

A large monument to the fighters has been erected in Goryachiy Klyuch, with plaques and personal numbers of the fallen fighters.

The battle for Soledar, which has been unleashed in recent days, has caused the death of some 10,000 Russian soldiers, according to an estimate. These were mainly Wagner’s.

In general, there are claims that the death toll of private military companies, of which Wagner is the main one, is now over 38,000.

One buried at Bakinskaya is Alexander Dityatev, jailed for 23 years in 2011 for murder, attempted murder and arson.

The tension between Wagner and the defense establishment erupted openly last Friday when the ministry claimed the capture of the Ukrainian town of Soledar, which Ukraine disputed, but did not mention Wagner’s role in the fighting.

Prigozhin complained about attempts to minimize the role of his forces and belittle their achievements. The Defense Ministry subsequently issued an update praising the “courageous and selfless actions” of the Wagner fighters.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters this week that it was not helpful for the pro-Russian media to participate in media “manipulations” over an alleged rift between the military and Wagner. He said that Russia recognized both as heroes and that “both will be forever in our memory.”

“As for any conflicts, these are mainly products of information manipulations, which, okay, are sometimes arranged by our information opponents, but sometimes our friends behave in such a way that those enemies are not needed,” he said.

‘Everyone is fighting for their country. This is how it should look.

Meanwhile, defector Medvedev said he was speaking from Oslo while seeking asylum. He said he crossed the border, climbing over barbed wire fences, evading a border patrol with dogs and said he heard border guards shooting as he ran through a forest and over thin, brittle ice toward Norway.

Prigozhin, who founded Wagner, said Medvedev had worked in a Norwegian Wagner unit but had “mistreated the prisoners”.

“Be careful, it is very dangerous,” Prigozhin said in a statement issued by his spokesman. Prigozhin did not address the allegations of murders or mistreatment of prisoners in the statement.

In interviews with Gulagu, Medvedev said he disengaged after Wagner repeatedly extended his contract without his consent and witnessed the murder and mistreatment of Russian prisoners Wagner brought to the front.

Medvedev said the losses were very high after Wagner started sending large numbers of prisoners to the front in the second half of 2022. Wagner’s internal security service imposed extreme punishments, Medvedev said.

He said the man shown in November being executed with a sledgehammer had been part of his unit.

Wagner’s statement did not address Medvedev’s accounts of punishment and battlefield losses, or that his contract was repeatedly extended.

Prigozhin has said his group is an effective fighting force because it has extensive battlefield experience, is well-provisioned, has a meritocratic command system in which everyone can contribute, and “the most severe discipline.”