A Russian neo-Nazi paramilitary group says it has defied President Vladimir Putin's order to delete a social media post that called for the execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Task Force Rusich, which has reportedly been actively involved in fighting in Ukraine on behalf of the Kremlin, said on its Telegram channel it was pressured by Russian officials to delete a post "about the [encouragement] of execution of prisoners."
The group is believed to have had links to the now-dissolved paramilitary outfit the Wagner Group, whose late chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed after his private jet crashed in Russia's Tver region in August 2023.
A Rusich's Telegram post in October 2022 called for the torture of prisoners of war in Ukraine and the "destruction of prisoners on the spot," the Guardian reported at the time.
A new Rusich post captioned, "Well done...Our drive to destroy prisoners is bearing fruit," said: "At first, they kindly asked [us] to remove the post with the execution, since according to the President's Administration (and the network of public opinion leaders) the very fact of such an action—that allegedly our military personnel did it—is completely refuted," the post read.
"At first they asked us softly, then other representatives began to demand that this post be deleted, threatening us with problems...because we are putting forward an agenda that is not officially supported by the President's Administration," the group said.
Task Force Rusich said it is "not going to delete anything and will express our position int he manner in which we consider it necessary."
"Since no one has ever tried to come to an agreement with us and offer mutually beneficial cooperation, they are only trying to put pressure on us and scare us, according to the principle: 'say thank you for not being in prison.'"
Newsweek could not independently verify the group's claims. Russia's foreign ministry has been contacted via email for comment.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, said in its analysis of the war in Ukraine on February 25 that drone footage posted that day showed Russian forces "committing apparent war crimes"—executing nine Ukrainian prisoners of war—near Bakhmut in Ukraine's Donetsk region.
The think tank said the February 25 footage marked "the fourth such instance of video evidence showing Russian forces executing Ukrainian POWs in the past two weeks alone." One of the four videos appears to be the footage republished by the Rusich group this month, which it has been pressured to remove.
"'Rusich', who called openly for the execution of Ukrainian POWs refused to delete their post despite pressure from russian officials. The official line is to "refute any evidence of executions," said X (formerly Twitter) user Dmitri, from WarTranslated, an independent project that translates materials about the war.
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About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more
