- Two men claiming to be ex-Wagner fighters have made harrowing claims about their actions in Ukraine.
- The men claim they killed dozens of children, civilians, and some of their comrades.
Two men claiming to be former members of the Wagner Group say that they killed dozens of children in Ukraine.
The former convicts Azamat Uldarov and Alexey Savichev made the confessions in video interviews with Gulagu.net, a Russian human rights organization.
Uldarov said in the video, according to Politico: "As we entered Soledar and Bakhmut, we got the order to destroy everyone: men, women, children, elderly. She was screaming, a little girl, don't know if she was 5 or 6. And I shot her."
The two men detailed several harrowing acts they say they committed in Ukraine, including killing over 20 Ukrainian children in Bakhmut and the Donetsk region, killing their comrades who refused to fight, and blowing up pits with more than 50 wounded prisoners in them, Politico reported.
Vladimir Osechkin, the head of Gulagu.net, said the two fighters had spoken to him for over a week in video calls.
Along with the interviews, he published documents that showed the pair spent up to six months fighting in Ukraine and returned home to Russia to receive medals and money.
CNN said it had also obtained penal documents showing the men were released from prison in Russia on presidential pardons in September and August of 2022.
Insider could not independently verify the men's identities or their claims.
The pair claimed to have fought with the Wagner Group, the Russian paramilitary organization founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, which has been active in fighting in parts of eastern Ukraine, including Bakhmut.
The group is known to recruit from Russian prisons, offering inmates freedom once they complete six months of fighting in Ukraine.
"There is a superior over all the commanders — it's Prigozhin, who told us not to let anyone get out of there and annihilate everyone," Uldarov said of fighting in Soledar and Bakhmut, per CNN.
Savichev said that Wagner fighters were ordered to "execute any men who were 15 years or older" and were told when sweeping houses to ensure all civilians found were killed, CNN reported.
"It doesn't matter whether there is a civilian there or not. The house needs to be swept. I didn't give a fuck who was inside," he said. "You can condemn me for this. I will not object. It's your right. But I wanted to live, too."
He claimed that fighters who did not follow orders would be killed.
Prigozhin took to Telegram to deny the men's allegations and threaten punishment against them.
"If at least one of these accusations against me is confirmed, I am ready to be held accountable according to any laws," he said, per CNN.
Uldarov later appeared on the Russian news agency RIA-FAN, which has ties to Prigozhin, to recant his account, CNN said.
According to Osechkin, who had published the original interviews, both former fighters began getting threats following Prigozhin's comments, Politico reported.
Ukrainian prosecutors have started to investigate the Wagner fighters' testimonies.
In another apparent confession by Wagner mercenaries, Alexey Savichev, 49, a convicted murderer, told The Guardian that he had been involved in the killing and torture of "dozens" of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
"We were told not to take any prisoners and just shoot them on the spot," he said in an interview published earlier this week.