A mercenary from the Wagner Group is detained on suspicion of murder
On March 27, the Vyatskiye Polyany TV channel aired a disturbing story about Ivan Rossomakhin, a former Wagner mercenary. The report detailed how Rossomakhin had returned to the town of Novy Burets, instilling fear in its residents. One woman was quoted as saying that he wandered around, “beer in one hand, pitchfork, axe, knife in the other. He walks, shouting: 'I'll kill everybody, I'll slaughter the entire family.' We haven't slept at night."
Rossomakhin killed a man in Novy Burets in 2019. When in prison, he was recruited by the Wagner Group. He returned home on leave on March 21, 2023. His presence in the town was making residents too scared to go to work, prompting the head of a local business to ask the police for help. Police Chief Vadim Varankin assured that his officers would be on duty 24 hours a day and that Rossomakhin would be sent out by train on March 28.
Soon after the TV report, Ivan Rossomakhin was detained on suspicion of murdering an elderly woman. Her dismembered body was found in the neighboring town of Vyatskiye Polyany on March 29.
In response to the incident, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, offered his "recruitment team" to help deliver any aggressive mercenaries back to the front.
More than 5,000 prisoners had been released after serving in the Wagner PMC. Prigozhin claims that, and only 0.31% of them committed crimes within a month after being released. These crimes were mainly committed against individuals who "were in favor of the Kyiv regime and opposed the objectives" of the war, according to Prigozhin. He also insists that Wagner has "reduced the crime rate in Russia tenfold."