Another Wagner soldier has been brutally executed with a sledgehammer

Another Wagner soldier has been executed with a sledgehammer by his own troops according to The Daily Beast, which reported on a video released by members of the mercenary group on their semi-official Telegram channel.

Photo by Telegram @grey_zone

"Members of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group have released another disturbing video apparently showing the second sledgehammer execution of what they say is a captured defector," wrote Dan Ladden-Hall of The Daily Beast.

The video shows convict-recruit Dmitry Yakushchenko taped to a pile of cinder blocks, condemned to execution for a disserting in November 2022.

“I went to the front as part of Wagner Group," Yakushchenko said in a translation provided by independent English and Russian news organization Maduza. "While on the front line, I realized that this isn’t my war."

"I was on the streets of Dnipro," Yushchenko continued, "where I was hit in the head and lost consciousness. When I came to, I was in this room, where they told me I was going to be put on trial.”

Yakushchenko was then executed via sledgehammer in a manner eerily familiar to a similar video released by Wagner executioners on Telegram in November 2022.  

In the footage from November, a man who identified himself as Yevgeny Nuzhin could be seen laying down with his head also taped to concrete blocks.  

Nuzhin said that he surrendered to Ukrainian troops in September and claimed to have been captured by Wagner fighters off the streets of Kyiv on November 11th.

"I got hit over the head and lost consciousness and came around in this dungeon," Nuzhin said into the camera. "They told me I was to be tried."

In the video, an unidentified Wagner fighter stated that Nuzhin “went to the front to join Ukraine and its fight against the Russians,” a plan the mercenary claimed was carried out on September 4th. 

The shocking video then showed Nuzhin being bludgeoned with a sledgehammer by one of the unidentified Wagner mercenaries.

The gruesome execution was labeled “Hammer of Vengeance,” and was likely released as a warning to other Russian Wagner convicts against surrendering to Ukraine.

It is unclear how Nuzhin fell into Russian hands, and many pro-Russian online sources are speculating that he was exchanged for an unknown number of Ukrainian soldiers. 

Nuzhin, 55 at the time of his death, was a former prisoner of Penal Colony-3 and was recruited by Wagner earlier this year when the mercenary group turned to the Russian prison system to fill the gaps in its ranks. 

Nuzhin didn’t fight with Wagner for long. He was captured by Ukrainian troops shortly after arriving at the front line and video footage of him was released by Ukraine in September in which he described the poor conditions within Wagner and the Russian army as a whole. 

Russian social media channels also published an alleged comment from Wagner’s unofficial owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in which he appeared to admit that Wagner had indeed committed the crime. 

"I prefer to watch this story in the theater. As for the executed, in this video, it is clear that he did not find happiness in Ukraine, but met with evil but fair people."

“I think this film should be called a dog meets its death. Excellent director’s work, you can watch it in one go. I hope no animals were hurt during the filming."

In an official statement to the press, Prigozhin said that “Nuzhin betrayed his people, betrayed his comrades… He wasn’t taken prisoner and didn’t surrender but planned his escape.”

Prigozhin has yet to comment on Wagner's latest crime, but Mreduza noted that the Russian news outlet Agentstvo believed that Yakushchenko was returned to Russian forces in a December 1st prisoner swap. 

Russia’s Wagner Group has a long history of committing atrocities on the battlefield and the group has been using sledgehammers as a method of execution and murder since they first were involved in Syria’s civil war. In 2017, Wagner fighter beat Mohammed Elismail to death and then quartered his body and burned it.