The Graphic Death of Yevgeny Nuzhin Underlines the Risk of Prisoner Exchanges in Ukraine

A former Russian prison inmate who defected to Ukraine after being recruited by the Kremlin-linked private paramilitary organization, Wagner Group, was the subject of a gruesome video on social media showing him killed with a sledgehammer. He may have been returned to Russian hands after a prisoner exchange.

The video of a 55-year-old man identified as (and who identified himself as) Yevgeny Nuzhin emerged last Friday on the Wagner-linked Grey Zone channel on the widely used Telegram social media app. The video, entitled “The hammer of revenge” Reuters reported, shows Nuzhin with his head taped to a brick wall.

Speaking to the camera, Nuzhin said that he had been abducted in Kyiv on October 11 and regained consciousness in a cellar. He added that he was to be “tried” without explaining who was doing so. According to Reuters, as he said these words an unidentified man in combat clothing behind him smashed a sledgehammer into the side of his head and neck. Nuzhin collapsed onto the floor and the unidentified man delivered another blow to his head.

As with so many aspects of the Russia-launched war Ukraine, nailing down the facts is difficult. The UK’s Guardian newspaper and other outlets are unable to confirm who was behind the video but many noted that Wagner Group boss and Putin ally, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was quick to comment on the footage, voicing his approval on Sunday, calling Nuzhin a traitor and adding, “Nuzhin betrayed his people, betrayed his comrades, betrayed consciously.”

The connection is meaningful since Nuzhin had been serving a 24-year prison sentence in Russia for a murder he committed in 1999. He was freed in July and apparently conscripted into Wagner. From there, Russian media reports claim that he was sent to the Luhansk region of Ukraine after a brief training spell.

After being captured by Ukrainian forces in September, Nuzhin gave several interviews to Ukrainian journalists in which he said he had joined the Wagner group to get out of prison and that he had planned to surrender to Ukraine. He criticized the invasion and expressed a desire to fight with Ukrainian forces.

The Guardian previously reported that Prigozhin was personally recruiting soldiers from Russia’s extensive penitentiary system to make up for Russian troop losses. “According to one Russian human rights group,” the paper noted, “Wagner has recruited more than 20,000 prisoners to fight in Ukraine so far. There have also been widespread reports of Wagner recruiting foreign convicts in prisons across Russia, including citizens from the five central Asian nations.”

What may be most important going forward is a determination of how Nuzhin was turned over to Russian forces or the Wagner Group. His explanation about being abducted should be treated with skepticism given the circumstances of the video.

According to Gulagu.net, a human rights group focused on the Russian prison system which spoke with a number of media outlets, Nuzhin may have been recaptured by Russian forces and handed over to Wagner. Or he may have been part of recent Russian-Ukrainian prisoner exchange. Another Telegram channel ,”Cheka-OGPU”, claimed that Nuzhin was returned on November 11 in a 45 to 45 prisoner exchange.

The exchange was confirmed by the Ukrainian presidential office according to Reuters but no further detail was provided. CNN reported that Anastasia Kashevarova, a former adviser to the head of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, confirmed that the exchange “included fighters from the Wagner company, but she did not identify them.”

If Nuzhin was part of the exchange, it could present a moral and public relations dilemma for the Zelensky government. As eager as Ukraine might be to exchange Russian prisoners (like the draftees that Forbes reported recently surrendered in the Donbas region) in return for its own captured personnel, public knowledge that it may be consigning them to a Nuzhin-like fate may not be well received.

The same dynamic might apply to the U.S. government which welcomed a negotiated prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia in September in which two American citizens captured while fighting with Ukraine’s military were returned. In a statement, U.S. secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, said “The United States is appreciative of Ukraine including all prisoners of war, regardless of nationality, in its negotiations…”

If such negotiations dovetail with a trend in which paramilitary combatants or insufficiently motivated Russian conscripts are returned to face retribution in Russia, the Western military ideal of “leaving no man behind” may be questioned.