Azamat Uldarov and Alexei Savichev were recruited from a Russian prison to fight in Ukraine with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner militia. In return, their sentence was waived. Today they live in hiding in Russia. They do not show much regret, they are mainly afraid for their own lives.

It was impossible to verify their abhorrent testimony, but according to the Russian human rights organization Gulagu.net, not exactly pro-Putin, they were sincere and repeated several times that they had no other choice. That they did everything on the orders of the commanders and that refusing was tantamount to execution. So it was kill or be killed according to them.

Savichev said about 70 former prisoners who refused to follow orders were executed under his orders.

Beaten to death with a hammer

Azamat Uldarov – why the two were in prison is not known – said that he shot a 5 to 6-year-old girl in the head. “She cried, but I had no choice. I just shot her,” he says without showing much emotion.

They cut people’s throats, they confessed. “When Prigozhin ordered us to kill people with a hammer, we did.”

Another time,” says Uldarov, “he ordered us to ‘clean up’ an apartment with about 400 residents. Everyone had to die. Men, women, elderly, children. I don’t know how many children died there. A lot of.”

hand grenades

There is also a lot of blood on Savichev’s hands. He confesses that he killed more than twenty youths. “We had to eliminate everyone 15 and older.” When asked how many civilians he himself shot there, he says: “You can hardly call 15-year-old Ukrainians civilians.”

Savichev also admits in January 2023, on the orders of higher commanders, that he and his companions threw about thirty grenades into a pit in which the dead and wounded lay. Some were still moaning, others were breathing but silent. Afterwards, we doused them all with petrol and set them on fire to cover any traces.”

In a conversation that lasted two hours, the two remained remarkably emotionless about the atrocities. Every now and then they let out a sigh. But there were no explicit apologies.

They say that they fought for their country, that they did their duty. Uldareov even says that if he is needed, he will immediately return to the front to continue the fight against the Ukrainians.

Decapitation

Andrey Medvedev, another former mercenary of the Russian paramilitary Wagner group who fled to Norway, also testified a few days ago that he recognized Wagner militiamen in the beheading video circulating on social networking sites. He also testified to Vladimir Osechkin, the founder of Gulagu.net.

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has always denied that his militia commits war crimes. “It is war, then people are killed. But not civilians and certainly not innocent children,” he responded to the testimonies.