Ex-Wagner mercenaries tell about everyday wartime

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When Yevgeny Prigozhin, 61, head of the Wagner mercenary group, began recruiting masses of Russian prisoners for the war in Ukraine last summer, an estimated 50,000 men joined him. No wonder: the mercenary boss lured with grace.

Five of them have now revealed their time during the war in an interview with Reuters news agency. Some rave about the battlefield, while others describe the war as “absolute hell”.

Four of the five men were recruited directly by Prigozhin. Your stories match. For three days the prisoners had been able to consider whether to follow the mercenary or not. In the end, about 40 of the several hundred prisoners reported.

According to the five men, there were different motives for joining the Wagner group. One of them, Rustam Borowkow (31), behaved this way for family reasons. “I have a small child. I wanted to go back to my family,” he told Reuters.

For Yevgeny Kuschelev (29) it was patriotic reasons. Although he was almost done serving his sentence, he volunteered for military service.

The operation was terminated prematurely

According to the five ex-mercenaries, the prisoners then followed a three-week training course led by former members of the Russian special forces. According to the men, it was short but intense.

For most of the five, however, the war effort was short-lived. Four of them had to abort prematurely due to serious injuries. However, the time in hospital was still taken into account so they were pardoned after six months despite the injury.

Everyone would return to Wagner

The men look back very differently on their time at the Wagner Group. The time at the front, according to one of them, was “absolute hell”. Andrei Jastrebow (22) sees it very differently. “So much adrenaline. I wish all real men would join the Wagner group.”

But the men agree on one thing: all five would return to the Wagner Group. They don’t want to hear about broken promises from Prigozhin. This gave them a “fresh start”. ‘Now I’m clean. I have money and can think about the future.” (ceded)

Source: Blick