Drunk Wagner Fighters Are Clogging Up Russian Train Stations
“One of them was taken away in an ambulance, he got drunk and became ill.”
Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
A huge number of Wagner fighters have been sent back to Russia from Belarus, but many of them have wound up going on drinking binges at train stations instead of returning to their families.
That’s according to a new report from the independent Russian outlet Mozhem Obyasnit, which reports that “every other brigade” of the mercenary group has been sent on vacation, with only the most experienced fighters remaining at the group’s new camp in Belarus.
Relatives of the Wagnerites have reportedly taken to a group chat to vent about the mercenaries’ misadventures.
“My [relative] is calling, he says one of them was taken away in an ambulance, he got drunk and became ill,” one family member was quoted as saying.
“Mine is home, although he’s drunk. The others haven’t managed to make it back yet, but they’re hammered already,” another loved one said.
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Another woman complained that “those getting drunk at the station” are “idiots” for not going home when their families are waiting for them. “They’re boozing to their heart’s content,” she wrote.
Several Wagner fighters previously released from the group after dodging prison time by way of mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s pardons-in-exchange-for-killing-Ukrainians scheme went home only to commit murders and rapes.
The independent investigative outlet Verstka reported earlier this month that Russian authorities appear to be trying to conceal a wave of crimes committed by freed prison inmates-turned-Wagner fighters, with their names erased from court documents and details of their crimes kept under wraps by prosecutors and investigators.
In a strange twist, Alexander Strukov, an ally of Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny who is currently jailed in Moscow for supposedly publicly calling for terrorism, told the Telegram channel Dept One on Wednesday that he’s found himself sharing a cell with several “soldiers and mercenaries.”
“We’ve already had six soldiers and mercenaries in our cell. For various, but similar, offenses—robbery, kidnapping, extortion, intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm.”
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