“Want to go to the front and have no job”: Wagner soldiers complain about normal life at home

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They live to kill: the Wagner mercenaries make their living by taking the lives of others, and the war in Ukraine has shown them to be masters of their craft. There it was the fighters of the Wagner group who ensured the decisive successes of the Russians – because they acted particularly brutally and unscrupulously.

Now that they are no longer stationed on the front lines, many mercenaries are in bad shape. According to Russian media reports, many ex-Wagner mercenaries became criminals after returning from the war. Many long for the front.

“If the Wagner group gives the order to return to Ukraine, I will crawl there on my elbows,” a Wagner fighter told the Bumaga search portal. He has been in Donbass since 2017 and was appointed lieutenant colonel by the Kremlin. In 2022, he turned his back on the Kremlin and joined the Wagner group as a “simple mercenary”. He lost both his legs in the war, but now that he is no longer allowed to fight is even worse for him.

‘Everyone says I should look for a job’

Another combatant (36) was convicted of murdering his wife – and pardoned by Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigoschin († 62). “If you don’t go to Wagner, you’ll rot here,” Prigoschin is said to have told the prisoner. The Wagner boss recruited many prisoners into the war and promised them freedom. The mercenary later received the medal for bravery – he has been drinking since returning from the war zone in March.

“Everyone tells me to get a job and start a peaceful life, but it’s not that easy,” says the mercenary. And he adds: “I would leave everything now to return to Bachmut.” But he does not want to work and kill directly for the Russian Ministry of Defense. The Russian army is in a sad state. “The conscripts are children without any combat experience. They are holding a machine gun and their hands are shaking,” he said. He did not want to participate in this ascension mission.

Breakup between Kremlin and Wagner boss

“Anyone who goes to the Ministry of Defense is a traitor,” the mercenary clarifies. He is not alone in that opinion. For most fighters it is clear: they return to the front as Wagner soldiers, or not at all. Because the dispute between the Wagner mercenaries and the Russian defense minister is far from over. The conflict between the late Wagner boss Prigozhin and the Ministry of Defense led by Sergei Shoigu (62) led to a rift between Wagner and the Kremlin. Two months later, Prigozhin died in a mysterious plane crash. Many are convinced that it was an execution.

The fate of the Wagner group is uncertain. As the opposition portal Vashniye Istoriye found out, many of the mercenaries are currently on leave. “Wait or find a new way to make money,” says the current representative of Prigozhin’s St. Petersburg office. Meanwhile, Shoigu tries to get the former mercenaries under his wing.

Source: Blick