Wagner mercenary murdered on camera with sledgehammer 'after defecting to Ukraine'

A Wagner mercenary was allegedly beaten to death with a sledgehammer after “defecting to Ukraine” in a video shared on social media.

In the clip, Dmitry Yakushchenko identifies himself as one of the convicts freed as part of Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s recruitment drive in Russian prisons.

“I was planning on finding some loophole, just, as they say, to run away,” the man says to a camera.

After his apparent confession, the 44-year-old’s head is taped to a tower of bricks before an unidentified man attacks him with a sledgehammer.

Yakushchenko’s body slumps to the floor as the man, likely a fellow Wagner fighter, swings the tool again.

The unverified video was released by Grey Zone, a popular Russian war blog associated with the Wagner Group.

Before his apparent murder, the victim confirmed that he had been born in Crimea and had received a 19-year prison sentence for robbery and murder.

He was released from jail in order to join Wagner operations in Ukraine, but fled after four days, according to Grey Zone.

“I was in the streets of the city of Dnipro where I got hit on the head and lost consciousness, I woke up in this room and was told I would be tried,” Yakushchenko said.

As he is killed, a caption appears on the video which says: “The court session is declared closed.”

Attacks with sledgehammers have become synonymous with Wagner mercenaries in recent years.

Last November, the group brutally killed Yevgeny Nuzhin, a convicted murderer accused of desertion, who was also freed from prison to fight in Ukraine.

That same month, a “bloodied” sledgehammer in a violin case was shipped to the European Parliament after MEPs started proceedings to label Wagner as a terrorist group:

Wagner had also been accused of using sledgehammers to smash the legs and heads of prisoners captured as part of their operations in Syria.

Meanwhile, the mercenary group found itself under mounting domestic pressure for its recruitment drive from Russian prisons.

In return for fighting for Wagner in Ukraine, Mr Prigozhin promised convicts pardons for their crimes, as well as hero status and honours.

However, ordinary Russian citizens were not so keen on making heroes out of murderers, rapists and thieves freed from jail to fight in Ukraine.

In Transbaikalia, south-eastern Russia, relatives of a 23-year-old convicted murderer who died fighting in Ukraine faced opposition in organising his funeral, according to local media reports.

Alena Kogodeeva, the head of the Zhireken village, said: “We have a really ambiguous situation in the village. The young man was convicted of murder. It was only two or three years ago, people remember it. Are we going to make heroes out of killers now?”