52 Lock Up: Suicide Squad/Wagner Group Ivan Rossomakhin

Welcome back to 52 Lock Up, I am your Appletini Cadma of Bitten Apple TV. 52 lock up is a series I started to talk about one of my biggest passions of true crime. A new episode on every Cadmaniac Monday for 52 Mondays, 52 crimes. Hope you guys enjoy, be sure to like, leave some feedback and subscribe; Viewer discretion is always advised.

We are heading to Russia today and I did my best to find as much as I can with today’s episode. Let’s first talk about the Wagner Group who has their own male version of Amanda Blake Waller; making their own suicide squad without all the fun parts like not living in a comic book that’s meant to be only entertainment but I digress.

Comic A.R.G.U.S. But in real life aka The Wagner Group is reported to have begun with Dmitry Valerievich Utkin/Дмитрий Валерьевич Уткин allegedly. Dmitry was born on June 11th, 1970 to the village of Smolino, Kirovograd of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic; formerly known as the USSR or also known as Soviet Ukraine because it was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. There’s very little about his life personally besides marrying Elena Shcherbinina and they divorced in the early 2000’s. Military wise, Dmitry served in the special forces in the GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) where he achieved gaining the rank of lieutenant colonel. He would leave the military in 2013 to work for Moran Security Group which is another private company founded by Russian Military Veterans for global missions focused on security, training and they specialized in security against piracy. These missions included Senior Moran Security Group managers being involved with setting up the Hong Kong-based Slavonic Corps which hunted down contractors to “protect oil fields and pipeline” in Syria during the civil war. I know I sound like I’m telling a comic story but follow me a little longer.

So The Wagner Group and it’s many names like PMC Wagner/Группа Вагнера, is created and Dmitry receives 4 Orders of Courage of Russia; which is awarded to citizens of the Russian Federation who showed dedication, courage and bravery in protecting public order, fighting crime, in rescuing people during natural disasters, fires, accidents and other emergencies, as well as for bold and decisive actions committed during the performance of military or civil duties under conditions involving a risk to life. It is the ultimate pledge of allegiance to their country and this can be received multiple times to the same person. So as America counts awards and who deserves what Dmitry is racking up awards for his dedication to the Kremlin.

This private military company is a Russian paramilitary organization. This includes a network of mercenaries or a de facto private army of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is stated that they are to operate beyond the law in Russia; which I’m sure people know that can be very dangerous. Wagner Group has been linked to neo-Nazism and far-right extremism.

So how did they get popular? Well, they were heavily involved in the Kremlin’s effort to capture the city of Bakhmut in Eastern Ukraine. Back in February 2014 the Russo-Ukrainian War would begin and this international conflict has been going on for years. Russia had annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported Pro-Russian Separatists fighting the Ukrainian military in the Donbas war. We’re talking 8 years of naval accidents, cyber warfare, propaganda and continued heightened political tensions.

The world would get a taste of the concern Ukrainians faced February 2022 when Russia launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine. Let’s back track to the Donbas war in Ukraine, The Wagner Group helped the Russian separatist forced. Once they became popular it’s been reported they have participated in other global conflicts like the civil wars in Syria, Mali, to support General Khalifa Haftar in Libya, even guarding diamond mines in the Central African Republic or gold mines in Sudan; you know fighting with people who pledge their allegiance to the Kremlin. If you’re wondering if Wagner has committed war crimes in the areas they were sent to; the answer is yes which does include rape, robbery of civilians, torture. You know the usual pillaging.

Dmitry Utkin may be one of the founders but it is also headed by rich businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose nickname is Putin’s Chef because of how much he “caters” to him; I’d say a willing bendovers or willing brown nosing; but who cares about the names. So we have a military professional and rich guy who make Amanda Waller look like a saint start The Wager Group; and obviously they’ve gained great notoriety. Have they committed war crimes? Well a former commander claimed asylum in Norway after witnessing war crimes in Ukraine. Three mercenaries have been alleged by Ukrainian prosecutors to have killed and tortured civilians near Kyiv in April 2022. German intelligence says they may have massacred civilians in Bucha in March 2022. The UN and French government accused them of committing rapes and robberies against civilians in the Central African Republic. The U.S. even accused them of planting land mines and other explosives in and around the Libyan capital.

Those that hire them will describe The Wagner Group as courageous and selfless; I mean I guess I can see that if someone willing kills and dies at your command and you wanted to describe it in a propaganda polite words to keep the public from looking at you. I get it.

Wagner now with a minimum of 50,000 fighters in Ukraine they are imperative to the Ukraine invasion or campaign but that’s not enough. The organization began recruiting in larger numbers last year because Russia had trouble finding people for the regular army; that’s weird I wonder why but I digress. Wagner has about 80% of their private army picked from prisons. Yes at one point most of them were experienced former soldiers and special forces.

Now I know what you’re thinking, this must be illegal and you’re right mercenary forces are illegal in Russia but the Wagner group registered as a company in 2022 to open a new headquarters in St. Petersburg. Their headliners promote to recruit in the cities, on all of the billboards as a patriotic organization.

Whew we’ve come a long way for this story, now that we understand Wagner one of the men from prison they recruited is Ivan Rossomakhin. Ivan was known to his home village to be a trouble makers; not the kind you’d say ahhhhh okay. A serious trouble maker and in 2019 a woman tried to chase him away from her land plot to protect her land and home; she would be beaten and strangled to death, her corpse was dragged into a bathhouse to look like an “accident” by putting her face down on a rake. A month later he would rob a passerby in the town of Vyatskie Polyany and then he was found guilty of murder and robbery.

The war begins and Wagner makes a trade to the prisoners to be pardoned after returning from the front line in Ukraine and if they survive after 6 months of fighting; along with other benefits. After this contract with Amanda Waller expires he would be permitted to return home to his native village. March 21st, 2023 he returns to the village that indicted him and began to threaten everyone. He walked around the village drunk, holding a pitchfork and an axe yelling “I’ll kill everyone, I’ll cut up your whole family”. There’s video footage of him smashing windows of two cars with the axe. The local police detained him on March 22nd 2023 and then was arrested for 5 days for minor hooliganism. Can you imagine putting this guy away for 14 years and he’s back 3 years later causing mayhem; and now you gotta figure out how to save the public without breaking the law? It was promised to the locals by the head of police department Vadim Varankin he would be gone by March 28th, but it seems he was hidden in Novy Burets.

Residents felt unsafe with Ivan roaming around, Galina Sapozhnikova told the local news station “We don’t sleep at night” while director of a business Ruslan Rupasov told the news their employees were afraid to go to work with Ivan out there. “We had a similar situation when we had the murder in 2019, and the people at that time were scared until they caught Rossomakhin and found him guilty. Now he’s returned, and people are again very afraid, they don’t know what to do, they are even refusing to go to work,”

The 28 year old convicted killer who was sentenced to a maximum security prison in Russia would be accused of another murder. He was back home for 8 days! It was labeled as a “break” until someone discovered their mother’s dead body where she was badly beaten and stabbed to death. Police Chief Vadim Varankin told the news “It was expected that he would behave oddly, because this person is extremely erratic, problematic. It was to be expected,” Through Vadim I learned his time to be back home was supposed to be short until May but did agree to to leave ahead of schedule. Looks like he wanted to kill again before heading back.

Ivan snuck around and stuck around until he killed this woman. Maybe better eyes should have been kept on him but with everything going on in Russia; is that possible?

Wagner Group rich businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin was questioned about the situation with Ivan and stated “Right now, more than 5,000 people have completed a contract with Wagner and been pardoned. The percentage of those who committed a second crime within a month is 0.31 percent. This is 10–20 times less than the standard before the [special military operation],…Therefore, I can say with confidence: We have reduced crime in Russia tenfold,” When pressed for more information and questioned by the reporter his response was how they were busy searching his garden for the corpse of your colleague. Yeah, great guy. Yevgeny would also make sure to mention that “But it should be noted that this whole time, out of the thousands of those who were released, there were only 20 crimes. And a very important point: These people not only commit [crimes] much less than before… but thanks to the fact that they fought, a lot of your children, fathers, and husbands, whoever they were, did not die.”

My question to you is do you think having a real life suicide squad helps? How do you rehabilitate someone like Ivan back into society so that society is still safe? How do you feel about a private military company/ PMC being hired across the world to do things like setting up landmines or protect gold or support people in power. If you ruled the world, what would you do? What about the loved ones of the first person they murdered? They didn’t really get justice? Do you think if he gets convicted again, will he pulled out again to serve in their Wagner suicide squad? What are your thoughts?

Thank you for your patience with this week’s late episode, but there was so much to try to find. Hope you enjoy this week’s episode and be sure to like, subscribe, leave some feedback, comment and share your thoughts on today’s episode.

And as always,

Stay Safe and Stay Vigilant

References

https://www.thedailybeast.com/convicted-killer-freed-by-wagner-comes-home-from-ukraine-and-kills-again?ref=scroll

https://cybershafarat.com/2022/02/23/dmitry-utkin-founder-of-the-wagner-pmc-putins-private-army/

https://www.spisok-putina.org/en/personas/3234/

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-paramilitary-mercenaries-emerge-from-the-shadows-syria-ukraine/28180321.html

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/convicted-killer-freed-wagner-goes-160106311.html

https://www.wral.com/a-wagner-soldier-returned-home-after-fighting-for-russia-days-later-he-was-a-murder-suspect/20790074/

https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/03/30/wagner-group-mercenary-suspected-of-murdering-senior-while-on-leave-in-russia

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/24/yevgeny-prigozhin-the-hotdog-seller-who-rose-to-the-top-of-putin-war-machine-wagner-group

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/26/europe/yevgeny-prigozhin-wagner-russia-intl/index.html

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/plans-replace-vladimir-putin-president-29580207

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-reveals-why-he-didnt-launch-full-invasion-ukraine-2014-1788767

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/12/the-other-ukraine-war-crimea-invasion-2014-putin/

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1753244/Wagner-convict-Ukraine-war-murder-russia

https://www.kake.com/story/48657385/a-wagner-soldier-returned-home-after-fighting-for-russia-days-later-he-was-a-murder-suspect

https://www.firstpost.com/world/wagner-pmc-mercenary-detained-on-suspicion-of-murdering-his-mother-12382232.html

https://global.espreso.tv/russian-wagner-soldier-convicted-for-murder-returns-from-war-in-ukraine-and-kills-again

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/18/russia-took-crimea-from-ukraine-in-2014-now-kyiv-is-fighting-back.html

https://localtoday.news/us/a-wagner-soldier-returning-home-after-fighting-for-russia-days-later-he-was-a-murder-suspect-370190.html

https://muckrack.com/ivana-kottasov

https://goodwordnews.com/a-wagner-soldier-returned-home-after-fighting-for-russia-days-later-he-was-a-murder-suspect/

https://headtopics.com/us/convicted-killer-freed-by-wagner-goes-home-and-kills-again-37360530

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4026289&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=123

https://theins.ru/en/news/260573

https://newsyou.info/en/2023/03/u-rf-amnistovanij-zek-z-vagnerivciv-povernuvsya-z-vijni-i-vbiv-zhinku

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-58009514

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60947877

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64050719

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-thinks-putin-ally-prigozhin-wants-control-salt-gypsum-mines-near-bakhmut-2023-01-05/

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/18/russia-wagner-group-ukraine-paramilitary-00083553

https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/decoding-wagner-group-analyzing-role-private-military-security-contractors-russian-proxy-warfare/executive-summary-key-findings/

https://abcnews.go.com/International/International/wagner-group-brutal-russian-military-group-fighting-ukraine/story?id=96665326

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56720589

https://www.euronews.com/2023/03/31/what-is-the-wagner-group-and-who-is-behind-the-kremlins-shadow-army

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/03/07/bakhmuts-capture-key-to-further-offensive-in-ukraine-russia-a80414

https://theintercept.com/2023/02/02/wagner-group-violence-sledgehammer/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/world/africa/mali-wagner-civilian-killings.html

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-latest-updates-russia-says-it-has-intercepted-us-provided-smart-bomb-after-earlier-firing-supersonic-missiles-in-sea-of-japan-12541713

https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/03/1134447

https://www.rferl.org/a/criminal-complaints-belgrade-vagner-recruiting-serbia/32230951.html

https://www.thedailybeast.com/wagner-group-accused-of-recruiting-prisoners-from-the-central-african-republic-for-russias-war-in-ukraine https://www.thedailybeast.com/wagner-group-accused-of-recruiting-prisoners-from-the-central-african-republic-for-russias-war-in-ukraine