New video of alleged sledgehammer execution appears on Telegram channel affiliated with PMC Wagner. Graphic footage

Telegram channel Grey Zone affiliated with private military company (PMC) Wagner has posted a new video which allegedly captures execution with a sledgehammer of a Russian inmate recruited by PMC Wagner for fighting in the war in Ukraine who had surrendered to Ukrainian servicemen.

The same Telegram channel previously posted the video of Wagner fighter Yevgeny Nuzhin being executed with a sledgehammer.

The person on the video “got infected with that same illness that leads to losing consciousness in the cities of Ukraine, sometimes in Kyiv, now in Dnipro, after which you wake up in a basement for your last court hearing”, the message accompanying the video reads.

TRIGGER WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC FOOTAGE

At the beginning, the video shows clips of the executed man telling his story. The video’s description indicates that those parts were filmed in Ukrainian captivity.

The man wearing camouflage with a blanket over his shoulders says that he was sentenced to 19 years of imprisonment and was serving his punishment in the city of Engels, Saratov region of Russia.

After being recruited by PMC Wagner for the war, he was deployed to the front.

On his way to the front, he was planning to “find some loophole, to run away, as they say,” the man in the video claims.

“Obviously, they captured Crimea for now, but it can be taken back in time. A year, two, maybe, later — and it can be returned [to Ukraine]. I grew up in Ukraine. I was liberated in Russia — I just said: well, fuck it, I don’t need it, this Russia,” he says.

According to the man in the video, he surrendered himself to Ukrainian servicemen near Bakhmut, Donetsk region of Ukraine.

Later in the video, the same man is shown, his head duct taped to a stone. He sits on the floor in a room that seems to be a basement. Behind him, another man wearing camouflage stands (the video only shows his legs and the sledgehammer in his hands).

The imprisoned man says that his name is Dmitry Yakuschenko, he was born in 1978 in Crimea, ended up in prison, and then was deployed to the front as a member of PMC Wagner, and there he realised that “this wasn’t my war”.

He adds that he was hit in Dnipro and lost consciousness. He then “woke up in this room” where he was told that he would be “judged”.

Then, the video shows the man being hit with a sledgehammer. However, most of the footage is blurry, so it is impossible to see what is really going on. The man falls backwards, the other man continues using the sledgehammer on him.

The only proof of the man’s name and last name is him saying his name in the video and the message of the post. Additionally, media outlet Agentstvo reports that on 1 December a man resembling Yakuschenko was on the video shared by Russia’s Defence Ministry and RT that showed Russian servicemen returned from Ukraine as part of a 50-50 POW swap.

On 13 November 2022, Telegram channel affiliated with PMC Wagner posted a video of the execution of its prisoner, former Wagner fighter Yevgeny Nuzhin. In the video, Nuzhin says that he switched to fighting for Ukraine in the war back in September and that he was kidnapped from Kyiv in November. The man regained consciousness in a basement, he was told that he “would be tried”. After that, the video shows Nuzhin’s head being smashed with a sledgehammer.

Founder of PMC Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin referred to the video of Nuzhin’s execution as “beautiful directorial work”. He later said that a PMC Wagner task force was investigating whether Nuzhin had been “recruited by the CIA and preemptively went to prison for 27 years”.

In December, ex-commander of Nuzhin, Andrey Medvedev, told media outlet The Insider that he is aware of ten cases of Wagner fighters executing mercenaries who had refused to fight.