Posted on 04/22/2023 6:39:56 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Murder, alcohol and prostitutes: Wagner convicts pardoned by Putin return to terrorise home towns
-Violent criminals who served with the notorious Russian militia in Ukraine are terrorising the communities they return to
Pjotr Sauer
Sat 22 Apr 2023 13.49 EDT
He strode up and down the central street of Tskhinvali on Monday, like he did most days, occasionally stopping to chat with passersby.
Locals knew the man, Soslan Valiyev, 38, as an idiosyncratic but popular fixture in Tskhinvali, the tiny capital of the Russian-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia in Georgia.
Tsugri, as Valiyev was affectionately nicknamed by everyone in town, had a developmental disability. “As long as I could remember Tskhinvali, Tsugri was always there, greeting cars as they entered the city with his big smile,” said Alik Puhati, a journalist and South Ossetian native.
“He was loved by everyone in our tight community. A welcomed guest at weddings and dinners, people really took care of and protected him,” Puhati added.
The shock was therefore palpable in Tskhinvali when the news broke out that Tsugri had been killed that evening. A harrowing video published on Telegram channels showed a man chasing and kicking Tsugri moments before he reportedly stabbed him to death.
“Everyone is in shock,” Puhati said, “people ask themselves, ‘How could this have happened?’”
Local authorities announced in the early hours of Tuesday that they had arrested a man who was suspected of murdering Tsugri. The man, who was identified by state-run media, was Georgiy Siukayev, a convicted murderer who was recruited from jail last autumn by the Wagner paramilitary organisation to fight in Ukraine.
Over the course of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Wagner has recruited tens of thousands of inmates, including murderers and domestic abusers, to fight some of the war’s bloodiest battles.
Soslan Valiyev, 38, known as Tsugri, was killed by an ex-Wagner convict.
Many are believed to have died in Ukraine, but those who survived the six months in the group’s ranks have earned presidential pardons and are now returning to their home towns. According to the notorious Wagner head Evgeniy Prigozhin, more than 5,000 former criminals have already been freed. One of those is Siukayev who recently returned to his home town of Tskhinvali.
Their releases have stoked fears that the men will go on to commit further crimes, worries that will only grow following a string of violent crimes perpetrated by former Wagner soldiers, including the murder of Tsugri.
Commenting on the case in a statement, Prigozhin claimed that Siukayev was defending bystanders who were being harassed.
But Anatoly Bibilov, the former South Ossetian president, dismissed Prigozhin’s statement, calling Tsugri a “kind and harmless guy whom everyone, with rare exceptions, loved as their own”.
Tsugri’s murder wasn’t the first allegedly committed by a pardoned prisoner turned Wagner fighter.
At the end of March, Yulia Buiskich, an 85-year-old pensioner, was killed at home in the sleepy town of Novyj Burets in the Kirov region, 600 miles east of Moscow.
The perpetrator, 28-year-old Ivan Rossomakhin, was already a repeat offender when he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for murder in 2020. He too was recruited by Prigozhin and recently returned to his home town after fighting in Ukraine.
News of Rossomakhin’s return deeply unsettled Novyj Burets’ modest community of a few hundred people and led to a town hall meeting, which was filmed by a local TV channel.
During the meeting, police chief Vadim Varankin promised that the “problematic troublemaker” Rossomakhin would be taken away from the town on 28 March.
Yulia Buiskich, 85, was apparently killed with an axe in her home by a freed Wagner group mercenary.
But a day later, on 29 March, Rossomakhin entered the wooden house of Buiskich, where he is believed to have killed her with an axe.
“The state and personally Putin and Prigozhin are to blame for Yulia’s death and should answer for it,” said a close relative of Buiskich, speaking under condition of anonymity.
“They released a sick bastard into society.”
The relative described Buiskich as a “very active and cheerful person, full of life”.
“At 85, she was so fond of traveling, she often traveled hundreds of miles to visit her friends and family,” the relative said.
“She had so much joy in her life, enough for another 10 years.”
In one picture shared with the Observer, a smiling Buiskich wearing a flowery dress is holding a large bowl of strawberries. Another image showed Buiskich proudly standing next to her granddaughter.
The relative, as well as other family members contacted by the Observer, said they feared state reprisals for speaking out against Wagner.
Earlier this year, Vladimir Putin signed legislation making it a criminal offense to publicly criticize Wagner fighters or publish negative reports about them. Soon after, a Russian activist who revealed details of the burials of Wagner mercenaries killed in Ukraine fled the country.
And Prigozhin, a longtime ally of Putin, has vouched to help former convicts who have served out their contracts in Ukraine if they get in trouble with law enforcement.
“The police should treat you with respect. If they are being unreasonable … I myself will call and sort things out with the governors and so on. We will find a solution,” Pirgozhin recently told a group of former prisoners.
The backing of Prigozhin, one of Russia’s most notorious figures, will add to a growing sense of impunity felt by prisoners returning home, said a representative of Jailed Russia, a prisoners’ rights NGO.
One of those former criminals is Alexey Savichev, who returned in March to his home town of Voronezh, a city in south-west Russia.
Savichev, 49, a convicted murderer recruited by Wagner last September, fought for six months in Ukraine, first in the battle for the town of Soledar and, after its capture, in Bakhmut.
Earlier this week, in an interview with this paper, he admitted to killing and torturing “dozens” of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Back in Voronezh, Savichev said he quickly spent the full sum he earned while with Wagner – roughly one million rubles (£10,000) – on “alcohol and prostitutes”.
“I was drinking basically non-stop, I finally had freedom and a lot of money,” he said.
Savichev described to the Observer how police in Voronezh would occasionally detain him for disorderly conduct late at night.
But, according to his account, he was released every time after showing the police some of the medals he received for fighting in Ukraine, including a presidential award for “bravery” seen by the Observer.
“The cops treated me somewhat like a hero,” Savichev boasted, adding that police officers would invite him for tea to hear tales about his time with Wagner.
“It felt like I could get away with anything.”
Soslan Valiyev, 38, known as Tsugri, was killed by an ex-Wagner convict. 
Yulia Buiskich, 85, was apparently killed with an axe in her home by a freed Wagner group mercenary. Comment #21 Murder, alcohol and prostitutes: Wagner convicts pardoned by Putin return to terrorise home towns https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/22/alcohol-and-prostitutes-wagner-convicts-pardoned-by-putin-return-to-terrorise-home-towns
Warmongers, Putin-lovers, lovers of the gay-dancing, grifting, pocket-stuffing puppet and to the propagandists flooding FR with their massive, endless, garbage propaganda blasts, please watch this sane, simple heartfelt plea from a good Christian man:
You’re on a hiding to nothing. The sheer ridiculousness of Hardspunned and other “it’s all about the USA, homos and NATO” fellow travellers beggars belief.
There’s no convincing them that these are merely supporting argument angles to Putin’s primary ideological mission... despite Putin spending far more time writing about it than anything else.
He’s all about restoring and enforcing the sphere of influence once enforced by the Soviet Union. In a nutshell, “unity” by force over the independent ex-SSRs and some of the ex Warsaw Pact. Central rule from Moscow, with gauleiters running the client states. The paperwork for it in Belarus is already signed by Lukashenko. It’s already “done deals” in Tatarstan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. He’s already attempted it in Georgia and Crimea. The regional annexations in Ukraine are carbon copies of what he’s already done elsewhere.
There’s no convincing the likes of Hardspunned that Putin’s rationale is bogus
If they actually understood the USSR they’d know that the USSR was a superstate, notionally a union that contained a Russian SSR as well as a Ukrainian SSR... Within it, the SSRs were client states - and Russia was also a client state.
Moscow was the location of the USSR leadership but outside Moscow, the Russian SSR was a client state just like Ukraine and Georgia. That’s why Belarus, Ukraine and Russia had equal status as independent countries after the Union was dissolved.
The end of the Union didn’t disenfranchise Russia at all. Russian SSR actually got everything that the other SSRs got, and more. Almost all the ex Soviet elites and super rich were headquartered in Moscow or had connections with Moscow. Independent Russia was mostly dirt poor but independent Moscow was a playground for the super rich and super powerful.
Putin conflates the loss of influence over the Warsaw Pact and ex SSRs (from Moscow) with the end of the USSR. He’s wrong. It’s an illusion.
Domination from Moscow had bugger all to do with the politics or culture of the Russian Federal Soviet Socialist Republic. It only existed because Moscow was the center of Union operations, where the richest, most influential, most corrupt, most ruthless and most feared Soviet Union elites were concentrated.
Putin wants for Eastern Europe something even worse than the USSR - a totalitarian superstate, run by Moscow for the benefit of the most feared, corrupted, super rich elites in Muscovy.
Under his model most of the state of Russia will be just as impoverished and subjugated as the ‘Stans, and the Donbas, and the far East.
Sevastopol, St Petersburg, Moscow and Volgograd may be privileged locations. How many other big cities will benefit?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Russia_by_population
Negotiated peace with Putin is a bizarre idea. The guy has Empire building ambitions like Hitler, combined with a Hitleresque obsession with redressing a “humiliation” that unlike Germany’s post WW1 was self-inflicted by the USSR and was not seen as a humiliation when it was endorsed by the Russian Federal Soviet Socialist Republic in the Belovezha Accords.
Putin’s s definition of “Nazi” is anyone living in the footprint of what once was the USSR who doesn’t love the idea of Moscow deposing their leaders and owning their ass.
His definition of “denazification” is, ending the aspirations of already free countries to continue to exist without being under the new Muscovy jackboot.
His objection to NATO expansion has bugger all to do with thinking NATO threatened Russia. It’s more an unacceptable inconvenience that Moscow can’t overrun the Baltics with tanks without risking an article 5 level response.
(Maybe that’s why Putin is offended at the idea of Ukraine joining NATO but turns out to be not bothered by Finland and Sweden possibly joining. He wasn’t planning to invade Scandinavia.)
And Globohomo? Well, that’s just an argument made to keep American bible thumping gay obsessed useful idiots on side.
Russia’s full of serial killers, sadists, fascists, neo nazis, sodomites, pedos, pimps, racketeers and child killers... and the new Russian order sure as shit isn’t going to punish them if they sign up for Wagner, and do their crimes in Ukraine.
The first wave of the worst of the worst scum released from Russia’s prisons to return from their tours of duty is already causing massive consternation inside the RF.
Russia is the only nation state in the world which not only has an overt, public, official state policy of forced child abduction and adoption, but has the brass neck to celebrate it to the point of getting the Child Catcher in chief to address the UN.
When did the Russians attack us or NATO, excluding Hillary’s and apparently your Russia, Russia, Russia deliriums? Where in the NATO Charter is any of this proxy war sanctioned? What treaty are we a signatory of that requires our unprovoked war against the Russians? Are you trotting out the tired, corrupt old world policeman BS again? We are responsible for the deaths of a million, mostly innocent Arabs during our murderous 15 year rampage looking for Saddam’s imaginary yellow cake 5000 miles away. And those dead Afghans, we sure showed them what for because the Saudis attacked us 9/11. The US went 10,000 miles, saw 2 million locals killed and 56,000 American boys, ravaged three countries for a decade to prevent the FIRST domino from falling. You, in all your righteousness, want to start WWIII when the Russians react to the 17th and very LAST domino from falling on their border, a days tank ride from Moscow. That domino is falling to greatest offensive military behemoth the world has ever seen. That behemoth sits on their border preaching forced regime change. It’s empty headed jingoistic stoogery like yours that will get us all killed.
So many statements that are flat out false, I can’t respond to all.
But, Russia brutalized their allies in the Warsaw Pact by invasion, taking sovereignty and taking over the internal security structures of their “allies”.
They ran from Russia, when it imploded, NATO didn’t run to them. They knew Russia and ran away to the safety of NATO. Russian invasion of Ukraine affirms they were right to go to NATO. Now, in comes Finland and Sweden.
You can’t or rather won’t respond because you are full of it. Name the “lies” or stop your cowardly misdirection.
“Putin’s s definition of “Nazi” is anyone living in the footprint of what once was the USSR who doesn’t love the idea of Moscow deposing their leaders and owning their ass.
His definition of “denazification” is, ending the aspirations of already free countries to continue to exist without being under the new Muscovy jackboot.”
You are EXACTLY CORRECT:
Moscow struggling with narrative to justify war as Wagner chief questions ‘Nazis’ claim, says UK
www.theguardian.com
4-22-2023 02.53 DST
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/russia-putin-nazi-ukraine-war-mod-update-uk-b1076004.html
The UK Ministry of Defence has issued its intelligence update for 22 April saying Russia is STRUGGLING TO MAINTAIN CONSISTENCY INA CORENARRATIVE USED TO JUSTIFY THE UKRAINE WAR: that the invasion is akin to the Soviet experience during the second world war.
The update posted to Twitter detailed RUSSIA’S attempts to unify the public around its central message:
On 18 April 2023, Russian state media announced the cancellation of this year’s Immortal Regiment ‘Great Patriotic War’ remembrance marches on ‘safety’ grounds. In reality, the authorities were highly likely concerned that participants would highlight the scope of recent Russian losses.
This follows Wagner group owner, YEVGENY PRIGOZHIM , PUBLICLY QUESTIONING whether there are actually any “NAZIS” in Ukraine, GOING AGAINST RUSSIA’S JUSTIFICATION FOR THE WAR. The authorities have continued attempts to unify the Russian public around polarising myths about the 1940s.
On 12 April 2023, state news agency RIA Novosti reported “unique” documents from FSB archives, implicating the Nazis in the murder of 22,000 Polish nationals in the Katyn Massacre of 1940. In reality, FSB’s predecessor agency, the NKVD, was responsible. Russia’s State Duma officially condemned Joseph Stalin for ordering the killings in 2010.
ADDITIONAL SOURCES:
1. Wagner boss openly defies Kremlin Ukraine ‘Nazi’ narrative
euronews
By Joshua Askew
Updated: 20/04/2023
https://www.euronews.com/2023/03/24/wagner-boss-openly-defies-kremlin-ukraine-nazi-narrative
“He expressed doubt about “denazification” objectives in Ukraine, unsure “Nazis” were in the country, while “effectively rejecting” the long-standing Kremlin claims that Russia needs to defend itself against a NATO threat.
“It is ridiculous to think” that Russian officials did not know NATO would come to Kyiv’s aid, the ISW quoted Prigozhin as saying.
Once a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s, the paramilitary unit which includes former convicts in its ranks has become increasingly conspicuous on the battlefield in Ukraine, with Prigozhin appearing to challenge the conventional Russian army on several occasions.”
2. Russia Is Struggling to Maintain Its Nazi Narrative: U.K.
Newsweek
Brendan Cole
4/22/23 at 7:35 AM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-victory-day-putin-nazi-mod-1796050
“Authorities said that the May 9 commemorations would not take place due to security concerns but there has been speculation that they were kiboshed because of a lack of tanks and equipment caused by the war.
Newsweek subscription offers >
British defense officials noted that the latest cancelation followed comments by Wagner Group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin in which he publicly questioned whether there are actually any ‘Nazis’ in Ukraine.”
3. Latest in Ukraine: Zelenskyy Announces New Sanctions Against Russian Military, Its Enablers
April 22, 2023 4:46 AM update April 22, 2023 8:46 PM
VOA News
https://www.voanews.com/a/latest-in-ukraine-uk-says-russia-struggling-to-maintain-ukraine-narrative-/7061716.html
“Another part of the Russian saga justifying its invasion against Ukraine, is its alleged de-Nazification operation there. But even Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of the Wagner Group and a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has publicly questioned the existence of Nazis in Ukraine, contradicting Russia’s justification for the invasion, the British ministry said.”
Yeah - I caught that; tx.
Snicker, snicker, snicker. Those “attacks” certainly justify pushing WWIII. Of course, the US is guilt free of massive attacks on Russia like that. If you weren’t writing Hillary’s Russia, Russia, Russia deliriums, you certainly have a knack for it. Funny, funny stuff!
You asked the questions. I provided the answers.
No, the USA hasn’t cyber attacked civilian and healthcare infrastructure in Russia. Russia certainly has been attacking American civilian and healthcare infrastructure in the USA since the 90s, costing billions of dollars of damage more than 9/11 did. And probably killed more Americans than 9/11 did.
The wars in the middle east were silly neocon adventures. America should’ve been far more focused on Russia.
We’re talking about a military proxy war wasting upwards of a half a billion American taxpayer dollars a day and being escalated rapidly by DC to WWIII and you provide this laughable nonsense. These alleged minor pinpricks have been going on for 70 years by both sides. You might want to take your MalPearce Dossier to the DNC of FBI. They’ve been known to pay big bucks for such laugh riot material.
Oh, I forgot to thank you for confirming, after all of your searching, that Russia has NEVER attacked us or NATO.
Yulia Buiskich, 85
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