Russian army deserter who fired at police in Rostov Oblast turned out to be Wagner mercenary
The mercenary has already been detained (Photo:t.me/bazabazon)
The Russian deserter who opened fire with a machine gun on police officers in Russia’s Rostov Oblast turned out to be a mercenary from Russia’s infamous Wagner mercenary company, pro-Kremlin Telegram channels reported on Dec. 7.
"Pavel Nikolin was serving a sentence for theft and robbery in the Ufa Penal Colony-4,” one report reads.
“From there he was recruited to the Wagner PMC. On Nov. 24, Nikolin changed his mind about fighting and fled. Yesterday, he was spotted near a factory in Novoshakhtinsk. Nikolin attacked the police and opened fire with a Kalashnikov machine gun. The man wounded one employee in the pelvis and then fled.”
Subsequently, the security forces found Nikolin on the premises of an abandoned pig farm.
Allegedly, he resisted law enforcers during detention.
The Wagner mercenary company is controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an associate of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
In mid-September videos appeared on social media showing Prigozhin recruiting prisoners in Russian jails for his mercenary company, offering them money and freedom after six months if they signed up to fight in Ukraine.
There were reports that Wagner was recruiting convicts from Russian prisons as early as July, as fighting intensified in Ukraine’s Donbas, in which Wagner fighters play a prominent role.
The company is rumored to be experiencing staff shortages as heavy fighting in the Donbas in the area of the key town of Bakhmut continues into the winter months.
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