“Executed” fighter PMC “Wagner” appeared on video with Prigozhin

War correspondent Alexander Kots published a video showing Dmitry Yakushchenko, a fighter of the private military company (PMC) Wagner, whose execution was reported earlier, and the founder of the PMC, businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The footage appeared in his Telegram channel.

In the video, the businessman introduced Yakushchenko and added that he was captured “because he was performing a combat mission and got lost.” Prigozhin stressed that the fighter behaved in captivity “like a normal man.” “Because there was a team, if you are taken prisoner, look both ways, remember the road where you went, what equipment is where,” the businessman explained and stressed that the military man, having returned from captivity, brought a large amount of necessary information.

Yakushchenko himself said that the attitude towards him in captivity was tough. “I was beaten, one might say, tortured, forced to say what they want to hear from me,” he said, adding that the Ukrainian military threatened to stab him and put the video on the Internet so that his relatives could see the video. The fighter also added that he would continue to serve in the ranks of PMCs.

A video allegedly showing Yakushchenko’s execution was posted on February 13. Prigozhin, at the request of journalists to comment on the footage, called for a calmer assessment of what he saw. Later, the businessman’s press service shared a video with Yakushchenko alive. On it, he stated that the PMC gives the right to correct their mistakes, and apologized for his interviews in Ukrainian captivity.

According to Kommersant, the military man was repeatedly tried for robbery, robbery and murder with particular cruelty. In 2015, he received 19 years in a strict regime colony, he was sent to IK-2 in Engels to serve his sentence. It was clarified that Yakushchenko was allegedly recruited into the Wagner PMC in the fall of 2022.