Responding to a post on Telegram – which appears to feature her member’s execution Wagner by the Ukrainian army, the head of the Russian paramilitary mercenary organization, Yevgeny Prigozhin, asked the members of the organization to stop holding Ukrainian prisoners but to “kill them all”.

“We don’t know the name of our boy who was injured and killed by the awful Ukrainians. But we will kill everyone on the battlefield. We will no longer hold prisoners”, said yesterday Prigozhin in his Telegram audio message.

In an audio message posted to a Telegram account that supports Wagner, a conversation between Ukrainian military personnel calling for the execution of a captured militant of the organization can be heard.

Prigozhin commented on the audio message giving the order to execute all prisoners of war.

“When you hold a prisoner, you begin to take care of him. You take care of him, you don’t harm him and you send him back to his home after some time, after exchanging him (with another prisoner) or just like that,” Prigozhin said.

AFP has not confirmed the authenticity of the recording.

Accused of various battlefield atrocities wherever it has deployed in the world, the Wagner organization is at the forefront of the battle to take over Bahamut in eastern Ukraine.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kiev and Moscow have accused each other of mistreating prisoners of war.

In mid-April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the actions of Russian “monsters”, after posting on social media video showing the beheading of a Ukrainian prisoner of war.

Prigozhin had rejected accusations by a non-governmental organization and a deserter from Wagner that the perpetrators of the beheading belonged to his group.