Lieutenant Colonel, Commander of the 72nd Motorized Rifle Brigade Roman Venevitin, who was previously captured by the Wagner PMC, spoke about torture by mercenaries and regular abductions of the Russian military. In his video message, which was published by the Caution, News channel, he also accused Yevgeny Prigozhin of "political PR."
According to Venevitin, "tension" in relations with the "Wagnerites" and his brigade began from the first days of the transfer to the combat zone. He said that PMC mercenaries provoked fighters into conflicts, threatened to kill, and stole military equipment, considering it a military trophy:
There was a kidnapping of fighters, who were then tortured. One military man, for example, was kept in a cold basement, his eyes were splashed with acid and all sorts of chemicals, from which he lost his sight for a while, they doused him with gasoline, brought a lighter, tried to burn him. <…> In April-May, a glaring incident was discussed in the unit, when a soldier of one of the units was beaten, lowered, and he simply committed suicide because of hopelessness. There were cases when fighters were kidnapped and tried to exchange them for ammunition, forced to store 200-hundredths, 300-hundredths, used simply as laborers, like slaves. There were cases when my fighters were taken away, forced to sign contracts with the Wagner PMC, thereby weakening the flanks of Bakhmat and my defense, there were such cases, and they are documented.
Venevitin also told the details of his capture (the founder of PMC Evgeny Prigozhin calls this episode “detention”):
How did my captivity come about? As a brigade commander, I was driving around my units, the PMC officers blocked my way. There were no legal or other grounds for this, I was not going to endure this as a military officer, <…> I obey my commander, the commander of the third army corps and the commander of the grouping. As a result, the employees of PMC "Wagner" were disarmed and sent in a known direction. Well, f*ck they were sent. It would be strange to expect otherwise, since we are in the zone of my responsibility, my brigade. Subsequently, they captured me, kept me in the basement and mocked me, since any damn, embittered Russian soldier would not mock at a captured soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. I was beaten, not allowed to sleep, three times a night they simply dragged me out of the basement, tried to shoot me. And after that you declare that I was “detained for investigative actions”? The video you distributed with my interrogation is the result of pressure and nothing more.
On June 4, the press service of the head of the PMC Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin published a video of the interrogation of Venevitin by the Wagnerites.
In the video, a man with a damaged nose bridge is standing in the basement. He admits that he ordered the disarmament of the Wagner PMC rapid response group, and also fired at the Ural car in which the mercenaries were in a state of intoxication. Venevitin claims that he did this “out of personal dislike”, and when asked how his actions can be characterized, he answers “guilty”.