Former prisoners who were recruited by the Wagner PMC said that Yevgeny Prigozhin personally gave criminal orders to shoot and kill Ukrainians, an investigation by Gulagu.net has found out.
Commenting on the findings, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, said that Russian terrorists had confessed to killing Ukrainian children in Bakhmut and Soledar.
"Now we are talking about war criminals from the Wagner private military company, but this sheds light on the crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine. They steal our children and kill them. How many more such crimes are there? A nation of inhumans and murderers, the biological garbage of this world. One confession is not enough. There must be punishment. Harsh and fair. And it will definitely be. We will find out all the facts of the crimes and find everyone who committed them," he said on Telegram.
Yermak also said that the Russians had abducted thousands of Ukrainian children. It is not yet known how many of them are still alive.
"We are doing everything to return our children. The world should see the face of Russia, not be afraid, but beat it hard," he added.
In an interview with the founder of the Gulagu.net project, Vladimir Osechkin, a former convict from Saratov CF-13, Azamat Uldarov, and a former prisoner from Voronezh CF-1, Alexei Savichev, spoke about war crimes.
"Azamat and Alexei are in Russia, they are 100% free from any influence of the SBU, CIA, etc. They gave detailed and consistent testimony during a week of video and audio interviews and told the founder of Gulagu.net, Vladimir Osechkin, the horrific details of the shooting of more than 20 Ukrainian children and teenagers, the blowing up of a pit with more than 50 wounded prisoners, etc. "The '500ths' (those who decided to leave the war and refused to carry out orders to kill Ukrainians), purging residential buildings while killing everyone, including children," the investigation says.
Savichev said that he and his "colleagues" were ordered to ambush and kill civilians, including children, in February after a prisoner exchange.
"Civilians were coming out. And there was an order: everyone aged 15 and above was to be shot immediately without a word. They shot 20-24 people, 10 of them were 15- and 17-year-olds," the militant said.
"She is screaming, she is a small child... She is five or six years old, and I fired, you know, a control shot... I carried out the order with this hand, killed the children. You know, on orders. What we were doing when we entered Soledar and Bakhmut... We were given the command to clear and kill everyone. We went and killed everyone – women, men, pensioners and children, including the little ones - five-year-olds," says the Wagner member.
The authors of the investigation emphasise that these testimonies are direct grounds for launching criminal prosecution against Prigozhin and his accomplices on the facts of dozens of brutal murders and a series of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
While watching the FSB torture video archive, journalists found a file dated 14.09.2020, which proves the fact of torture and perverted violence against Uldarov himself. He confirmed that he had been beaten, tortured and raped on the instructions of Pavel Gatsenko, head of regional tuberculosis hospital No 1, and Bochkov, head of the operational department.