A gruesome video emerged last week of a former Russian prison inmate who had defected to Ukraine after being recruited by the Kremlin-linked private military group Wagner, showing him being repeatedly struck with a sledgehammer, Guardian reported.
The video of the killing of Yevgeny Nuzhin was posted over the weekend by the Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone in which Nuzhin was shown lying down with his head taped to a brick wall as an unidentified man in combat clothing hits him with a sledgehammer.
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Yevgeny Nuzhin, 55, had been serving a 24-year prison sentence for a murder he committed in 1999 when he was freed in July. He was later conscripted into Wagner, a military group run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a powerful Russian businessman and a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Following Yevgeny Nuzhin's capture by Ukrainian forces in September, he gave a series of interviews in which he said he had joined the Wagner group to get out of prison. He also criticised the Russian leadership and expressed his desire to join the Ukrainian forces.
{{/usCountry}}Following Yevgeny Nuzhin's capture by Ukrainian forces in September, he gave a series of interviews in which he said he had joined the Wagner group to get out of prison. He also criticised the Russian leadership and expressed his desire to join the Ukrainian forces.
{{/usCountry}}Yevgeny Nuzhin's son Ilya Nuzhin told Guardian that his family learned of their father’s death through Telegram, which left them “horrified”.
“Our whole family was in tears watching the video … he was murdered like an animal,” Ilya Nuzhin said.