Wagner’s recruits ‘are full of drugs that allow them to keep fighting,’ says Ukrainian soldier
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Ukrainian soldiers have likened Wagner’s recruits to zombies, describing drugged ex-prisoners climbing over the corpses of their comrades during wave after wave of brutal attacks.
The Kremlin’s private military company bolstered its numbers by giving imprisoned criminals in Russia a six-month war contract, promising them freedom at the end of their service if they survive the horrifying attack.
The horde of murderers, rapists, thieves and gangsters who now populate the Russian armed forces with little training are being used as human suicide battering rams to break through Ukraine’s front lines of defense, before experienced soldiers follow.
Ukrainian soldiers Andriy and Borisych, speaking from the besieged town of Bakhmut, said they have been fighting hundreds of Wagner fighters for weeks in a conflict of attrition.
Ukrainian soldiers Andriy and Borisych, speaking from the besieged town of Bakhmut, said they have been fighting hundreds of Wagner fighters for weeks in a conflict of attrition.
andriy said CNN: ‘They are climbing over the dead bodies of their friends, stepping on them.
“It seems that it is very, very likely that they were receiving some drugs before the attack.”
In one particularly savage battle, Andriy said, it was a group of 20 soldiers fighting nonstop waves of 200 Russians for 10 hours.
He said their AK-47 rifles got so hot from constant shooting that they had to be constantly changed.
The fighter added: ‘Our machine gunner was almost going crazy, because he was shooting at them. And he said, ‘I know I shot him, but he doesn’t fall.’ And then after a while, when he maybe bleeds out, he just falls off.
As Wagner’s forces rush forward, they dig trenches while backed by artillery to consolidate their territorial gains.
A former Wagner commander who fled to Norway has even apologized for the horrors in Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, has recruited Russian convicts for the war effort.
Ukrainian military make a trench near Bakhmut where attrition fighting with Wagner fighters has been based.
The PMC Wagner Center is represented in St. Petersburg, the headquarters of the private army.
Andrei Medvedev, who fled across the Russian-Norwegian border on January 13, says he witnessed the murder and mistreatment of Russian prisoners recruited by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s murderous militia.
He said he fled across the Arctic border, scaling barbed wire fences and evading a border patrol with dogs, hearing guards shooting as he ran through a forest and over the frozen river that separates the two countries.
The 26-year-old is now seeking asylum in Norway.
“Many consider me a scoundrel, a criminal, a murderer,” Medvedev said in an interview. ‘First of all, again and again, I would like to apologize, and although I don’t know how it would be received, I want to say I’m sorry.
‘I want to explain that I am not that person. Yes, I served at Wagner. There are some moments (in my story) that people don’t like, where I joined them, but no one is born smart.’
Medvedev said he wanted to talk about his experiences in the war so that “the perpetrators are punished” for their crimes in Ukraine.
“I have decided to publicly oppose it, to help ensure that perpetrators are punished in certain cases, and I will try to contribute, at least a little.”
Andrei Medvedev (pictured), who fled across the Russian-Norwegian border on January 13, says he witnessed the killing and mistreatment of Russian prisoners.
Medvedev said he joined Wagner in July 2022 on a four-month contract and during that time he witnessed two people who did not want to fight being shot in front of newly recruited prisoners.
‘The scariest thing? Realizing that there are people who consider themselves your compatriots, and who could come and kill you in an instant, or on someone’s orders,’ he said.
Your own people. That was probably the scariest.
Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, previously said Medvedev had worked in a Norwegian Wagner unit and “mistreated the prisoners.”
“Be careful, it is very dangerous,” Prigozhin said. Wagner did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
In Bakhmut, the Ukrainian Special Forces, the National Guard and an artillery unit worked together to eliminate a raiding squad of Wagner mercenaries.
In Bakhmut, the Ukrainian Special Forces, the National Guard and an artillery unit worked together to eliminate a raiding squad of Wagner mercenaries.
The footage, filmed from a drone, shows the area to be a farm, and the Ukrainian military says it has detected a platoon of Wagner’s mercenaries there.
A Russian soldier walks out of a building before the area is hit by what appears to be an artillery barrage.
The footage, filmed from a drone, shows the area to be a farm, and the Ukrainian military says it has detected a platoon of Wagner’s mercenaries there.
The area then continues to be bombed and buildings damaged.
Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said Wednesday night that there is fierce fighting in eastern Ukraine, with Russian troops trying to advance near the strategic town of Lyman.
Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russian forces are trying to make progress that they can show on the anniversary of the invasion on February 24.
Zelensky said: ‘A definite increase in the offensive operations of the occupiers on the front in the east of our country has been noted. The situation has become more difficult.
This morning, rescuers search for survivors in the rubble of an apartment building in eastern Ukraine on Thursday after a Russian attack destroyed it.
At least three people were killed and 20 wounded on Wednesday when a Russian rocket hit a residential building in the center of Kramatorsk, located in the Donetsk industrial region in eastern Ukraine.