REUTERS/Yulia Morozova
Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin has gone scorched earth on two former prison-inmates-turned-mercenaries who spoke publicly of the group’s war crimes after they were cut loose.
Alexei Savichev and Azamat Uldarov made headlines earlier this week with an interview to the human rights group Gulagu.net in which they gave firsthand accounts of allegedly watching battlefield executions and being ordered to kill Ukrainian civilians—including children. Both men are now in hiding somewhere in Russia after saying they’d been bombarded with threats from Wagner and told to rescind their testimony.
Prigozhin, who has already repeatedly denied their allegations and suggested it’s all part of a smear campaign possibly involving Western intelligence agencies, has now called on Russia’s top prosecutor to step in—claiming the two whistleblowers, “under foreign influence,” may be preparing “terrorist attacks” or “murders” on Russian soil.