CNN
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Two Russian men who claim to be former commanders of the Wagner Group have told a human rights activist that they killed children and civilians while in Ukraine.
These claims were made in video interviews with Gulagu.net, a human rights organization that fights corruption and torture in Russia.
In video interviews posted online, former Russian detainees Azamat Uldarov and Alexey Savichev – both of whom were pardoned by Russian presidential decree last year, according to Gulagu.net – described their actions in Ukraine during the Russian invasion.
CNN cannot independently verify their claims or identities in the videos, but has obtained Russian criminal records showing they were released under presidential pardons in September and August 2022.
Uldarov, who appears to have been drinking, describes how he shot and killed a five- or six-year-old girl.
“It was a management decision. I had no right to let anyone out alive because I had orders to kill anything that got in my way,” he said.
According to Gulagu.net, the testimonies were given to the founder and Russian dissident Vladimir Osechkin over the course of a week. Uldarov and Savichev were in Russia at the time of their interview.
“I want Russia and other nations to know the truth. I don’t want war and bloodshed. You see, I’m holding a cigarette in this hand. I followed orders with this hand and killed children,” Uldarov said, describing his motivation for the interview.
The Wagner Group is a Russian private mercenary organization fighting in Ukraine, led by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The organization recruited tens of thousands of fighters from Russian prisons, offering them freedom and money after a six-month period. Western intelligence services and prisoners’ rights groups estimate that between 40,000 and 50,000 men were recruited.
Uldarov said that in the towns of Soledar and Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, which saw some of the fiercest fighting, Wagner mercenaries “were ordered to wipe out everyone.”
“There is one superior above all commanders – this is Prigozhin, who told us not to let anyone out of there and to annihilate everyone,” he added. CNN has previously reported that former Wagner fighters have made similar statements.
Uldarov has since appeared to retract his statement in a video call with Russian news agency RIA-FAN, which is linked to Prigozhin.
At one point in the interview, Savichev described how they “were ordered to execute all males aged 15 or older.”
He also spoke of being ordered to “clean” a house. “It didn’t matter if there was a civilian in it or not. The house had to be cleaned. I didn’t care who was inside,” he said.
“Whether it was a shack or a house, it was about making sure there was not a single person alive in it,” he said. “You can condemn me for that. I will not object. That is your right. But I wanted to live, too.”
Savichev said that Wagner fighters who did not follow orders were killed.
Wagner group leader Prigozhin confirmed on his Telegram channel that he had viewed excerpts of the video and threatened the two Wagner veterans with reprisals. “As for what Osechkin filmed, I watched the excerpts of the video that I managed to see,” he said. “I can say the following: if at least one of these accusations against me is confirmed, I am ready to be held responsible in accordance with all laws.”
But Prigozhin said: “If nothing is confirmed, I will send a list of 30-40 people who spit on me like Osechkin (there is a whole list, including the scum who fled Russia) whom the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine is obliged to hand over to me for a “fair trial”, so to speak.”
“They will not be ‘civilians’ to us, and especially not children, whom we have never touched and do not touch. This is a blatant lie. These people (who spread these lies) are our enemies, and we will treat them in a special way.”
Earlier, Prigozhin said on Telegram: “As for the execution of children, of course, no one ever shoots civilians or children, no one needs this. We came there to save them from the regime they were under.”
Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said in a tweet Monday that the group must be held accountable.
“Russian terrorists have confessed to numerous murders of Ukrainian children in Bakhmut and Soledar. Confessions are not enough. Punishment is needed. Severe and just punishment. And it will certainly be inflicted. How many other crimes of this kind have been committed?” he said.
In February, CNN spoke to two Wagner veterans who described how convicts recruited by Wagner are pushed to the front lines in a human wave, reminiscent of World War I charges. Deserters, or those who refuse to follow orders, are killed and there is no evacuation of the wounded, they said.
In January, the U.S. Treasury Department designated the Wagner Group as a significant transnational criminal organization and imposed a series of new sanctions on a transnational network that supports it.
The US State Department simultaneously announced a series of sanctions designed to “target a range of key Wagner infrastructure – including an aviation company used by Wagner, a Wagner propaganda organization, and Wagner front companies,” according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
