A video allegedly showing the impaled head of a Ukrainian soldier caused horror.
Now a Wagner mercenary is said to have been identified as the perpetrator.
Update from April 13, 9:05 a.m .:
After the disturbing video that is supposed to show the beheading of a Ukrainian prisoner of war, the perpetrator was identified.
According to civil rights activists, it is said to be a former Wagner mercenary whom the Russian ex-mercenary Andrei Medvedev recognized as his former comrade.
Medvedev fled to Norway months ago and is currently being held in Sweden.
The Russian civil rights organization Gulagu.net showed the video footage to Medvedev, the organization's founder Vladimir Osechkin said in an interview on Wednesday (April 12).
"He listened and watched it carefully several times, and he clearly recognizes there his former colleagues, fighters of the Wagner mercenary group," Ossechkin said in the post, which was published on the YouTube channel of expatriate Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
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Two mercenaries hold the Wagner flag in front of a building.
© Evgeny Biyatov/IMAGO
Medvedev, who himself used to fight for the notorious Russian mercenary group, identified the men based on "characteristic call signs and their way of speaking," the civil rights activist continued.
Ossechkin's organization is actually primarily known for its work against violence in Russian prison camps.
However, she also looked after ex-mercenary Medvedev when he was arrested in Norway in January under the local immigration law after fleeing.
Medvedev was later released in Norway and a few weeks later imprisoned in neighboring Sweden for illegal entry.
Gruesome Wagner Group War Crimes: 'Remains of Head on a Stick'
First report from April 12:
Moscow – The private military company Wagner Group has repeatedly attracted international attention since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The mercenary troops fight alongside the Kremlin soldiers and, among other things, played an important role in the months-long brutal struggle for the city of Bakhmut.
According to an assessment by the Institute for War Research (ISW) published on Monday (April 10), members of the Wagner group are said to have once again committed war crimes in the eastern Ukrainian city.
This emerges from videos posted by Russian users via social media.
One sees "allegedly the remains of the head of a Ukrainian soldier on a spear", taken in an undefined area in Bakhmut.
Russia's crimes in the Ukraine war: Wagner squads commit war crimes
Similar cases of skulls on spears in the Luhansk Oblast, where Wagner troops were operating at the time, became known on social media in 2022 during the Ukraine war, according to the ISW assessment.
The Geneva Convention prohibits all mutilation and looting of corpses in war.
Former Wagner soldier Andrei Medvedev, who fled the fighting in Ukraine and sought asylum in Norway, reported in February 2023, according to the Reuters news agency, about crimes he saw in the Bakhmut area.
Medvedev said he saw two people shot dead in front of new Wagner recruits after they refused to fight.
He told Reuters that he wanted to share his experiences so that "the perpetrators are punished".
War crimes by the Wagner mercenaries: alarming reports from Ukraine as well as from Mali
In other countries, too, the Wagner troops are accused of human rights violations.
In January, the United Nations (UN) called for an investigation into possible international crimes in Mali, where the Wagner Group was operating alongside the Malian military.
War crimes reported by the UN include "alarming reports of horrific executions, mass graves, torture, rape and sexual violence, looting, arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances."
In January, the US government classified the Wagner group as a transitional criminal organization, reports the
New York Times
.
Russia's war crimes: arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin
Former Russian commander Igor Girkin accused Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin of committing war crimes in a video message last month.
Moreover, Prigozhin's "political ambitions" and "psychopathy" would only "damage both Wagner and the common cause of victory over Ukraine".
And Vladimir Putin is not immune to allegations either: The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of illegally deporting Ukrainian children to Russia.
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List of rubrics: © Evgeny Biyatov/IMAGO