The colonel also accuses the Wagnerians of stealing weapons and equipment. For analysts, this is yet another sign of how tense relations between the Russian armed forces and Wagner’s troops are.
Lieutenant Colonel Roman Venevitin of Russia’s 72nd Independent Motorized Brigade made headlines last week when the Wagner Group a video published in which he was questioned. He was asked, among other things, why he shot Wagner’s troops and whether he considered himself guilty. A video has now appeared on Twitter in which the colonel accuses Wagner of, among other things, theft, kidnapping, extortion, forced recruitment and rape. From ordinary Russian soldiers, that is.
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Venevitin’s kidnapping and subsequent charges are shrouded in mystery. According to the British newspaper The Guardian, it is not known where Venevitin is now, who in the video calls himself the “already ex-commander”. It is also unclear whether he made his new allegations voluntarily or under duress and why Venevitin was removed from his post.
It’s not the first time that the public has been able to enjoy the mud between the Russian army and the boss Wagner Prigozhin. Prigozhin has repeatedly accused the Defense Ministry of depriving its troops of ammunition. He also claimed that the Russian army fired on his troops during the battle around Bachmut.
“The tension with the Wagners started for me and my brigade from the first days of our move to Bachmoet,” Venevitin says in the new video, which was uploaded to the Internet earlier this week and sent to journalists. Venevitin, whose identity was confirmed to The Guardian by relatives, said his soldiers were systematically abducted, mistreated and sometimes subjected to sexual violence. Lui also claimed that Wagner stole two T-80 tanks, four machine guns, a truck and an armored fighting vehicle.
Discredit
Venevitin also directly accused Prigozhin of “actively discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and trying to present Wagner as the only effective force in this conflict.” The territorial victories Wagner claimed would have been impossible without the army, reservists and other irregulars, he said.
‘Total nonsense’
Prigozhin, for his part, rejected the allegations, calling them “absolute nonsense”. He had previously claimed that his mercenaries arrested Venevitin, interrogated him and then handed him over to the authorities. It is unclear, however, whether an investigation into Venevitin is underway or whether he has been arrested.
Venevitin said that he was kidnapped by Wagner near Bachmut. In the “interrogation video” later posted on Prigozhin’s social media channel, he told his interrogator that he had ordered his troops, while drunk, to fire on a Wagner convoy. Venevitin said he acted out of his “personal dislike” for Wagner and later apologized.
In the new video, however, the colonel claims he was held up in a basement by Wagner, beaten and doused in petrol. After three mock executions, he was caught on camera and asked to apologise. “The video you posted of my interrogation is the result of pressure, and that’s all,” he said.
Hostility
The new video is a preliminary culmination of the growing tension between Prigozhin and Venevitin’s 72nd Brigade. In May, Boss Wagner had already accused the brigade of abandoning its positions near Bachmoet. The British Ministry of Defense also reported at the time that the brigade had withdrawn from Bachmoet “in a messy state”.
In the new video, Venevitin defends the army and accuses Wagner of fomenting “anarchism” at the front. “The anarchism that Wagner is feeding on the front is the result of a game played by the political elites who, instead of strengthening our president, are trying to weaken him”.
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