Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose Wagner group is heavily involved in the fighting in Ukraine, has applauded a video in which a former member of the group is brutally murdered.   

  The video surfaced over the weekend on the Telegram channel Gray Zone, which often highlights the activities of mercenary fighters from the Wagner group, which is accused of war crimes in Africa, Syria and Ukraine.   

  It showed a member of the group who had deserted and gone to the Ukrainian side being murdered with a sledgehammer.  The man is named (and identifies himself in the video) as Yevgeny Nuzhin.   

  In the video, Nuzhin says: “On September 4 I implemented my plan by going to fight alongside the Ukrainian troops.  On November 11, I was on a street in Kyiv when someone hit me on the head and I lost consciousness.”   

  And he adds: “I woke up in this cellar, where I was told that I would be judged.”   

  Within seconds, he is killed, hit at least once with a sledgehammer.   

  Prigozhin was asked on his Telegram channel about the assassination.  Without directly acknowledging that Wagner’s fighters carried out the murder, he said: “Nuzin betrayed his people, betrayed his comrades, consciously betrayed them.  He was not taken prisoner, nor surrendered.  He probably planned his escape.  Nuzin is a traitor.”   

  “Russians can smell betrayal – it’s genetic.  Hence the comments on social networks,” Prigozhin said, referring to some positive responses to the assassination.   

  In a separate Telegram post, Prigozhin called the video “an excellent director’s work.”   

  “I prefer to watch this story in the theater.  As for the executed, in this performance it is clear that he did not find happiness in Ukraine, but instead met with rude, albeit righteous people.  It seems to me that this movie is called “The Dog Accepts the Death of the Dog”.   

  The text on the Gray Zone channel that accompanied the video said that “the sledgehammer and the traitors have a close relationship for the ‘orchestra’ [ie Wagner].  And now, suddenly disappearing from the investigation in Kyiv, the traitor received the traditional primordial Wagnerian punishment.”   

  In early September, Nuzhin was interviewed by Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov and talked about surrendering to Ukrainian forces and his readiness to fight on the side of Kiev.   

  Nuzin also talked about how the Wagner group is recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine in exchange for the promise of full pardons to Russia.   

  In early October, Nuzhin gave another interview to Ukrainian journalist Ramina Eskhakzai, expressing his support for Ukraine and revealing more details about how the Wagner Group operates.   

  In the interview, Nuzhin confirmed that he had spent 23 years in prison in Nizhny Novgorod for murder.  He was due to be released in 2027, but chose to join the Wagner group to fight in Ukraine.   

  He also told Eskhakzai: “My parents live in western Ukraine.  How can you go to war with your family?  ”   

  On Sunday, Vladimir Osechkin, head of Gulagu.net, a prisoner advocacy group, said on his blog that he had interviewed Nuzhin’s sons, who confirmed that he was their father in the video.   

  It is still unclear how Nuzhin ended up in captivity.   

  CNN reached out to Ukrainian authorities, asking if Nuzhin was sent back to Russian territory in exchange for the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war, or if he was abducted without their knowledge.   

  On Friday, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, said in a statement that 45 Ukrainian soldiers had returned from captivity in another round of prisoner exchanges.   

  Anastasia Kasevarova, a former adviser to the head of the Russian State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, said the exchange included fighters from the Wagner company, but did not identify them.   

  Asked about the video on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We have no comment.  We don’t know what it is, how true it is.  This is none of our business.”   

  Prigozhin is reportedly one of Putin’s most trusted confidantes – so close that the Russian press dubbed him the Russian President’s “chef” after he began catering events for the Kremlin.   

  In September, he admitted to founding the Wagner Group after years of denying involvement with the outfit.