Putin’s soldiers give chilling interview and say: ‘We are at war with Britain’

Captured Russian mercenaries have revealed the lies they sold to join Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Until recently, Victor and Anatoliy were both serving long sentences in Russian prisons – one for the murder of a Chechen, the other for assault.

Until Yevgeny Prigozhin – nicknamed “Putin’s boss” – flew a helicopter to their prisons and promised them £2,200 a month and erased their criminal records.

After six weeks of “very hard training” with assault rifles, machine guns and mines, they were sent to the front as fighters of the Wagner group.

They told The Mirror they had been thrown into the horrors of war and seen comrades butchered like worthless cannon fodder for the Russian army in the run-up to the anniversary of the invasion tomorrow.

Viktor, a father of two from the Stavropolsky region of Kavkaz, said: “We were told that other countries, including Britain, were involved in the war in Ukraine and that we would defend Russia from foreign terrorists.

“We were told that we would not fight civilians, but fascists and soldiers from other countries.”

In all, about 200 men in his prison agreed to join the Wagner group in hopes of a “fresh start” after the war in Ukraine was won.

After his signing last September, Viktor was taken by bus to Rostov, near Ukraine, and then to Luhansk in Donbass.

“I couldn’t have gotten a job with a criminal record and I felt like I had no choice, even though it took me a week to decide on Wagner,” said the ex-Baumeister.

“We were sent in groups of 15 against supposedly only 10 Ukrainian soldiers, and then we found out there were as many as 40 Ukrainians.”

Viktor described what happened on the front lines of the war as “shocking and horrific” and explained how he would see “arms and legs shot off in battle”.

Like Viktor, Anatoliy was captured by the Ukrainian army while fighting as a mercenary for the influential group.

He had served 18 months of his three-year and six-month sentence for assault when Prigozhin flew to his prison to look for recruits.

The auto mechanic, who hails from Samara in central Russia, described the oligarch as a “serious man”.

Like Viktor, Anatoly said he was not told where he was being sent, but that he “understood that we were going to fight in Ukraine.”

“We made large-scale attacks and I was in five major battles and the Wagner group was always ahead of the army,” he said.

Anatoliy was captured by Ukrainian forces after he and his Wagner comrades were sent to fight Kiev forces in the Donbass.

He said: “In the end I was alone, pinned down by Ukrainian troops. The Wagner Group sent another detachment of ten and the sniper killed five.

“I lay there without ammunition, a Ukrainian soldier stood above me with a machine gun. As a warning, he shot into the ground next to my legs. I was then captured unharmed.’

The Wagner group consists of about 50,000 soldiers, mostly recruited from Russian prisons.

It has played a crucial role in the war in Ukraine alongside the Russian army, but separate from formal military leadership.

But earlier this month, Metro.co.uk reported that Putin is downsizing the group, fearing it has become too powerful.

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