The commander of the Wagner PMC mercenaries in Soledar is ex-military Anton Elizarov, who was convicted of fraud. His identity was established by the Dossier Center.
On January 14, a video allegedly filmed in Soledar was published on the Telegram channel of the press service of Wagner PMC owner Yevgeny Prigozhin. On it, Prigozhin talks about the capture of the city and introduces the man standing next to him as "commander the capture of Soledar. The name of the man is not called. Prigozhin says he is an experienced fighter who took the city "without chewing snot in two weeks." At the same time, the battles for Soledar began in the spring of 2022 and, according to the Ukrainian side, are still going on.
As the Dossier Center found out, Elizarov was born in 1981 in the Rostov Region, graduated from the Ulyanovsk Guards Suvorov Military School in 1998, and the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School in 2003. He served in the 108th Regiment of the 7th Guards Air Assault Division in Novorossiysk, where he commanded a platoon and company. He was also a group commander in the 10th separate special forces brigade in Molkino. During his service, he took part in military operations in the North Caucasus. In 2014, Elizarov was accused of fraud with a service apartment – he provided false documents during its privatization. The court sentenced him to three years in prison and a fine of 100 thousand rubles. Elizarov sued the Ministry of Defense for an apartment, but lost, and in 2016 he was evicted, Dossier writes.
Since 2016, Elizarov has been a member of the Wagner PMC with the call sign Lotos, number M-0136. Being a Wagnerian, he fought in Syria, where in 2017 he was wounded by a shrapnel in the thigh, worked as an instructor in the Central African Republic in 2018-2019, and in 2021 he commanded an assault detachment in Libya. In September 2022, Elizarov, along with Prigozhin and the governor of the Vologda Oblast, appeared at the funeral of the Wagnerite Alexei Nagin. The video shows his awards – the star of the hero of Russia and the star of the hero of the so-called DPR and LPR.