(Moscow) The leader of the paramilitary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigojine, announced on Tuesday the death of an American volunteer serving alongside troops in Kyiv, eastern Ukraine.
In a video relayed by Russian military bloggers, Mr. Prigozhin showed himself showing the body of a soldier he said was American, in the rubble of a building.
In this short video, we see him walking around with his men at night and we hear muffled sounds of explosions around, without being able to determine exactly where the scene is taking place or when.
Standing next to the body of this soldier lying on his back bare chested, a wound in his stomach, he said in a solemn and ironic tone: “He came to meet us. Citizen of the United States of America”.
Without giving his suit, Mr. Prigojine shows the camera in the dark what appears to be the personal documents of the soldier in question.
« Nous le rendrons aux États-Unis. On le mettra dans un cercueil [avec] the American flag. With respect, because he did not die in a grandfather’s bed, but in the war,” says the businessman whose paramilitary group is on the front line on the Russian side in the bloody battle for Bakhmout.
Mr. Prigojine’s claims were not immediately independently verifiable by AFP.
In a message published Tuesday evening by his press service, Yevgeny Prigojine added that “of course, I will hand over the body” of this fighter to the American authorities.
“I will do it especially for the washington post he continued in his characteristic provocative style, a few days after the American daily reported that he would have offered Ukrainian intelligence to provide him with information on the location of Russian army units, in exchange of a withdrawal of Kyiv forces from Bakhmout.
Mr. Prigojine had described Monday as “laughable” this press information.