A Russian man who says he killed children and other civilians while serving with Wagner’s private military company in Ukraine appears to have denied the claims, suggesting he was blackmailed into doing so.
Ex-convict Azamat Uldarov retracted his claims in a video call with Russian news agency RIA-FAN. It was not immediately clear if there were any conditions for the interview.
He and another ex-convict, Alexey Savichev, previously gave lengthy and rambling interviews to Russian human rights group Gulagu.net, describing them as tens of thousands of Wagnerian fighters recruited from Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine one.
Speaking to Gulagu founder Vladimir Osechkin, Uldarov said he shot and killed a young girl, calling it “a management decision”.
“I’m not allowed to let anyone out alive because my orders are to kill anything that gets in the way,” he said, estimating the girl to be five or six years old.
In an interview with RIA-FAN, which is linked to Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, Uldarov said he was drunk during the interview and claimed that Osechkin blackmailed him from prison. time.
RIA-FAN asked: “They made you say what you said in the video, right?” Uldarov replied: “Not only correct, but [expletive] correct. I have to say because I have no choice. “
“I said what I was told to say,” Uldarov then said.
“Prigozhin is a good guy,” he added with a thumbs-up. “He saved our lives.”
But Osechkin, who lives in Gulagu, France, told CNN he stands by the content of his interviews with the two men, citing Uldarov’s withdrawal as evidence of how quickly dissenting voices are being silenced in Russia.
Osechkin also claimed that both Uldarov and Savichev interviewees had been threatened with murder if they did not retract their statements against him. Savichev told Gulagu that his troops were ordered to kill anyone aged 15 or over.
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