Deserter with light machine gun: Wagner Group announces start of their own investigation

The operative team of the Wagner Group PMC [private military company] will conduct its investigation to find out whether it is true that the deserter who opened fire in the Russian city of Novoshakhtinsk served in its ranks.

Source: press service of Yevgeny Prigozhin, Chief of the Wagner Group, on Telegram; Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation on Telegram

Quote from Prigozhin: "This information [about the detention of a fighter of the Wagner Group – ed.] cannot be provided due to the fact that it is not public and has a limited operational nature. The operative team of the Wagner Group will conduct its own investigation."

Details: At the same time, Prigozhin stated that the main issue was not that the person "left the combat zone" because "perhaps he was wounded, received a severe concussion, as a result of which he went insane", and "in his blood-stained eyes, the policemen seemed to be soldiers of the enemy, dwarfs or cosmonauts".

Prigozhin believes that the main issue is how a certain soldier of the Wagner Group, recruited from among the former prisoners, ended up with a weapon in his hands on the territory of the Russian Federation. According to Prigozhin, this happened either because "there is no border [control]", or the detainee may allegedly be a representative of the "sabotage group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine".

Prigozhin also stated that the photos of the deserter that were published on the network were taken from a police car. He said that "if the policemen have time to take pictures and leak information to journalists, then why don't they go to the front line and instead of this prisoner die on the battlefield with weapons in his hands."

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation published a video of the detainee on its Telegram.

Background:

• On 6 December, a soldier with a machine gun who wounded a policeman was placed on a wanted list in Novoshakhtinsk city [Rostov Oblast, Russia]. 
• On 7 December, it became known that a deserter was detained in Rostov Oblast (Russia); according to the information from the media outlets, it appears to be a soldier of the Wagner Group who was recruited from one of the penal colonies earlier.
• On 13 November, it became known that a citizen of Russia was brutally executed without trial and investigation by tying his head to concrete with tape and hitting him with a sledgehammer from above. Prigozhin, the founder of Wagner Group, hinted that this was the work of his mercenaries. Perhaps, with the help of such a video of execution, Russia is trying to discourage the Russian conscripts from surrendering.
• After the publication of the video of the execution with a sledgehammer of Yevgeny Nuzhin, a former inmate recruited by the Wagner Group, the recruitment of convicts in the colonies of Siberia and the Far East intensified: only in November, Wagner has "conscripted" people from at least six regions east of the Urals, taking 150-200 people from each penal colony.
• On 22 November, Politico reported that the members of the European Parliament want to recognize the Wagner Group as a terrorist organisation.
• Yevgeny Prigozhin, Chief of the Wagner Group, proposed that Russia pass a sledgehammer with fake blood stains to the European Parliament in response to a possible recognition of his group as a terrorist organisation.
• On 23 November, the European Parliament recognized Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and called for Wagner Group to be added to the list of terrorist organisations of the European Union.

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