Dmitry Utkin, Wagner’s torturer

He has two tattoos located at the base of his neck. Two tattoos which, on their own, contradict Vladimir Putin’s speech on the supposed Nazification of Ukraine. These tattoos (the symbol of the SS but also an eagle and a swastika) say everything about Dmitry Utkin’s personality. The man who is also nicknamed Wagner or “the ninth”, and who bears the number M-0209, would have whispered the name of Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer to Yevgueni Prigojine to baptize his private military company. This Russian bald giant, who is reminiscent of the executioner Kurtz from Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now, assumes its affiliation with the Third Reich and its fascination for extreme violence. According to journalist Romain Gubert, author of a special issue on Russia, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev calls him the “devil incarnate”.

An “invisible” man

A “devil” who, like Vladimir Putin and many officers or senior officers, is targeted by European Union sanctions. He is accused of “serious violations of human rights, summary or arbitrary extrajudicial executions and assassinations” as well as “acts of torture”. But if the facts in question are very serious, whoever is responsible for them is however difficult to identify on the ground. “There are very few pictures of him, notes Alexandra Jousset, co-author of a documentary on Wagner produced by the Capa agency. He still travels on Russian planes, but it’s hard to know where they are. We were sent a pseudo-photo of him at the inauguration of a statue in Bangui [en novembre 2021, NDLR]. But it is almost impossible to be certain that it is him. He always has his face a little hidden, a cap. He’s a pretty enigmatic character.”

Syrian apprenticeship

53-year-old Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Utkin was born in the Urals. After a stint in the Russian Military Secret Service (GRU), he found himself in conflict with the General Directorate of Military Intelligence. He joined the militia “Slavonic Corps” (in French, the Slavic corps). At that time, in Russia, he risked up to eight years in prison for mercenarism, a profession prohibited by law. Mercenaries are indeed frowned upon by the Kremlin, except when they serve the interest of the state in a friendly country. And that’s what happened in 2014. Bashar al-Assad asked Dmitry Utkin’s militia to ensure the security of his oil wells. This is how he will train himself in the most cruel methods. Because he will soon fight alongside the Syrian army. Russian soldiers and militiamen besiege cities, torture and starve populations, loot, destroy, and rape. Kamal Redouani, author at Arthaud of Inside Daech and New War Dogs, remembers that “Utkin’s group hanged and burned a man, a Syrian deserter. They cut up his body and dismembered him. I don’t know how a human being can do that.”. According to the register of asset freezes published by Bercy, “four members of the Wagner group” were involved in this assassination committed in June 2017 in the governorate of Homs, Syria. According to a former member of the Wagner group quoted in this same document, “Dmitry Utkin personally ordered the deserter to be tortured to death and the act to be filmed”.

In addition to his involvement in war crimes, Dmitry Utkin will convert to another propaganda technique theorized by Daesh: the filming and broadcasting of assassination videos. “The more they publish ultra-violent videos through the networks, especially on Telegram channels, the more they realize that their aura is growing, explains Alexandra Jousset again. They realize that people know their names, that they have become a brand, that stories are made about them, and that journalists like you and me are interested in them.” Syria served, in fact, as a laboratory for Dmitry Utkin to develop methods of terror through images, which he would then use in Ukraine.

Merger with Wagner

Back from Syria, the future warlord is sent to the Donbass at the head of 300 men to support the pro-Russian separatist uprising. He will be there in March 2014, when Crimea is annexed. The conflict in the Donbass is the breeding ground for private militias. Dmitry Utkin would then have joined as commander the private army of Evgueni Prigojine. It was therefore under his banner that he returned to Syria in March 2016, in order to help the Syrian and Russian forces to retake the city of Palmyra from Daesh. Once this mission is accomplished, in December 2016, he will be awarded a reward (the Order of Courage) from the hands of Vladimir Putin. This ceremony gives rise to one of the rare photos of him that is public today. We see him a head taller than his superior, Colonel Troshev, who commanded Wagner’s men in Syria.

He will then oversee Wagner’s operations in Ukraine. His name will be mentioned again, without his involvement being clearly established, when an unbearable video is broadcast on the internet in mid-November 2022. A former Wagner fighter taken prisoner by Ukrainian troops was taken over by his ex-comrades who then consider him a “traitor”. We see his head taped against a wall, crushed with hammer blows.

Shortly after, on November 23, 2022, the European Parliament votes to classify Russia as a “state promoting terrorism” and invites the Council of 27 to add the Wagner group to the list of terrorist organizations. In reaction to these sanctions, a new video will be posted on a pro-Kremlin Telegram group. In a macabre scene, a costumed man displays a mace stamped with Wagner’s seal, the handle of which is stained red. The reference to the first video seems obvious. The Parliament of Strasbourg will deny having received the object, but many are the media in the world to have echoed it.

Shortly after this episode, the trace of Dmitry Utkin will be lost. “Uktin is apparently still in Ukraine, esteems for his part Marc Nexon, author of the book The Last of the Soviets (Ed. Grasset). A deserter, former Wagner fighter Andrei Medvedev, who fled to Norway, says he was accountable to him when he was in Ukraine in 2022, so he would still be around.” But where exactly? In the West, no one knows.