In the video, the man’s head is stuck to a brick as he confesses to desertion, before one of Wagner’s fighters attacks him with a sledgehammer. “It seems to me that this film should be called: ‘A dog dies a dog’s death,’” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is the financier of the Wagner Group and is considered a close ally of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. “It was an excellent directorial work, which we saw in one breath. I hope no animals were harmed during filming.” The murdered man gave his name as Yevgeny Nuzhin before he was killed. He was a convicted murderer who agreed to sign up to fight in Ukraine with the Wagner Group after a recruitment drive this summer in Russian prisons led by Mr Prigozhin. Typically, Mr. Prigozhin would fly to a remote Russian prison colony by helicopter with a “Hero of Russia” medal pinned to his mock military uniform, then lecture the convicts about their duty to defend the “Motherland.” In exchange for fighting for the Wagner group in Ukraine, Russian officials promised them pardons for the crimes they committed.
