Murderer who ‘surrendered’ after being released to fight for Putin beaten to death ‘for treachery’
Convicted murderer released from prison to fight for pro-Putin private army ‘before he surrendered to Ukraine’ is beaten to death with sledgehammer ‘for treachery’
- Yevgeny Nuzhin, 55, was released from prison to fight against Ukraine this year
- He was drafted into Putin’s brutal private army, which is called Wagner group
- Horrific video released on social media shows Wagner members killing him
- In the footage the 55-year-old can be seen strapped to a column of bricks
- The video then shows him being brutally beaten to death with a sledgehammer
- WARNING – DISTURBING CONTENT
A convicted murderer who was released from prison to fight for Russia has been beaten to death with a sledgehammer by his countrymen after ‘surrendering’ to Ukraine.
Yevgeny Nuzhin had been serving a 24-year prison sentence for murder when he was freed earlier this year and conscripted into Wagner group, Vladimir Putin‘s private army.
The 55-year-old was reported to have defected soon after arriving on the frontline, and in September told a journalist he felt like ‘cannon fodder’ and had decided to surrender as some of his family live in Ukraine.
However, a pro-Russian source says he was later kidnapped by pro-Kremlin forces and has since been killed in revenge for his decision to leave.
Grey Zone, a media outlet in Russia, posted a graphic video in which Nuzhin can be seen strapped to a column of bricks with clingfilm.
Yevgeny Nuzhin had been released from prison earlier this year to fight for Vladimir Putin’s private army, Wagner group
The 55-year-old, pictured here in prison, had been serving a 24-year sentence behind bars for murder
In the video the convict can be seen tied to a column of bricks with cling film before he is brutally killed
He defected to Ukraine after reaching the frontline of the conflict, but was later recaptured by Russian troops and executed
As the camera focuses on him he says: ‘I am Yevgeny Anatolievich Nuzhin, born in 1967, who went to the front to go to the side of Ukraine to fight against the Russians.
‘On 4 September, I carried out my plan to go over to the side of Ukraine.
‘On 11 November 2022, I was on the streets of Kyiv, where received a blow to the head, as a result of which I lost consciousness.
‘I woke up in this basement, where I was told that I was going to be tried.’
The footage shows him being hit with a sledgehammer multiple times, with a message from the pro-Wagner Grey Zone Telegram channel saying: ‘Those who understand know that a sledgehammer and traitors have a close relationship.’
It is unclear how Nuzhin was returned to Russia, with some doubt cast on whether it would have been possible to kidnap him from the streets of the Ukrainian capital.
It has been suggested this could have been a scripted addition by Wagner to warn other fighters.
‘Suddenly disappearing from the investigation in Kyiv, the traitor received traditional primordial Wagnerian punishment,’ stated Grey Zone.
The father-of-two was brutally beaten to death with a sledgehammer in a video released on Russian social media. Pictured: His jail robe which shows his original release date of June 14, 2027
The convicted murdered claimed he had been kidnapped from the streets of Kyiv by pro-Russian forces shortly before he was killed
Nuzhin was jailed in 1999 for murder and wounding a second victim and had been serving his 24-year sentence in a prison in the Ryazan region, to the south of Moscow.
He was released after a visit by Wagner leader and Putin crony Yevgeny Prigozhin, but is reported to have quickly become disillusioned.
Speaking to a Ukrainian journalist Yury Butusov in September after he defected, he said: ‘We were in training for seven days, the 7th squad was an assault unit…
‘I don’t even know how to explain the task of assault squads, I realised for myself – cannon fodder.
‘You do something wrong – they zero out, it’s called a firing squad.’
He added that he could not face fighting against his relatives who live in Ukraine. He is thought to have married while in jail and has two sons, both of whom serve in the Russian army.
As the war has raged on criminals and inmates in Russia’s prisons have been offered the chance to join Wagner and fight on the frontline in Ukraine in exchange for reduced sentences.
The group has threatened to execute deserters and traitors, despite the fact these extrajudicial killings are illegal under Russian law.
Russian prisoner human rights group Gulagu.net believes the shocking footage is genuine.
‘Nuzhin was in a strict regime colony, he was recruited by Yevgeny Prigozhin and almost immediately was taken captive [by Ukraine],’ said a post by the group.
‘Some time later he did an interview – watched more than eight million times, and said he decided to fight for Ukraine.
Wagner group is headed up by Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, pictured here serving food to Vladimir Putin in 2011
‘According to our sources, Nuzhin was either re-captured, or passed back to the Russian army, who passed him on to the so-called Wagner Security Service.’
It said Nuzhin was killed ‘with a sledgehammer as a way of revenge for his critics of Putin, and for switching to the side of Ukraine.’
Gulagu.net added the footage ‘proves’ that Russian special services and Wagner’s ‘security service’ carry extrajudicial executions, and kill prisoners who refuse to fight for Russia, but want to switch to Ukraine.
It concluded: ‘Putin and Prigozhin are murderers. They must face justice.’
Former Putin speechwriter Abbas Galyamov said the footage would damage Prigozhin who is said to want to become Russia’s defence minister.
‘People would not want to see a person, organising public medieval executions, in power,’ he said..
‘He also did a very bad service to the regime with that.’