Wagner Fighters Urged to Switch Sides by Pro-Ukraine Russian Soldiers

A Russian military volunteer corps that has fought for Ukraine's sovereignty has a new message to Wagner Group fighters in the wake of Yevgeny Prigozhin's presumed death: Join our side and fight the Kremlin.

Prigozhin is among 10 members of the paramilitary group thought to have been killed Wednesday while aboard a plane that crashed in Russia, with some suggesting it was shot down by the Russian Defense Ministry's air missiles. The incident occurred two months to the day that Prigozhin and his mercenaries staged an attempted mutiny against the Kremlin that lasted less than 24 hours but drew global attention.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was once closely allied with the private military contractor and oligarch, broke his silence regarding Prigozhin's rumored demise, calling him "a man with no easy fate" who made "serious mistakes" but was also a formidable ally against what he refers to as the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.

"I appeal to the fighters of Wagner PMC [private military company], for whom valor and honor still have at least some meaning," Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) leader Denis Nikitin (Kapustin) said in a video posted by the group on Thursday on Telegram. "Apparently, your founding father and commanders were cynically executed yesterday. And you know very well who is behind it.

"Therefore, now you are faced with a serious choice: Either stand in the stall of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and serve as watchdogs for the executioners of your commanders, or take revenge. To take revenge, you need to go over to the side of Ukraine. If you have not committed war crimes, we invite you to join our ranks."

Nikitin concluded his statement: "Let's finish the bloody SVO [special military operation] meat grinder together, and then we'll march on Moscow. And this time we will not stop 200 kilometers from the Moscow Ring Road, but we will reach the end."

Nikitin, whose real last name is Kapustin, is nicknamed "White Rex" and has been a well-known figure in Russian right-wing social environment, according to Open Democracy.

The nickname reportedly refers to a streetwear brand he started in the late 2000s that contained pagan and neo-Nazi symbols. Finances from the products are said to have sponsored weightlifting and mixed martial arts (MMA) competitions.

He has also expressed support for Ukraine's Azov regiment, a volunteer paramilitary group that began in 2014 aimed to combat pro-Russian forces in the Donbas region around the same time that Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.

"The whole chain of events, from the attempted mutiny to the shooting down of Prigozhin's jet, would not happen if it were not for Ukraine's military and society's spirited, dogged, professional resistance to the Russian invasion," Mikhail Alexseev, a political science professor at San Diego State University, told Newsweek via email.

He mentioned Wagner forces' efforts, to the Kremlin's ultimate benefit, of fighting for months in the "meat grinder" of Bakhmut. In July, a Wagner-associated Telegram channel announced that about 22,000 mercenaries have been killed fighting Ukrainians while about 40,000 have been wounded in the 18-month war.

"[Wagner] was going through this tremendous senseless loss of life that made even [Prigozhin's] hardened, brutal character snap and lash out at Russia's high command," Alexseev said. "This suggests that Ukraine's battlefield will be the decisive factor, if one is to expect any regime transformation in Russia—and Western military support is probably the single most important and effective lever in driving Putin out of power."

Nikitin's efforts to appeal to Wagner fighters also states that the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine "guarantee you security and decent conditions."

Newsweek reached out to the Ukraine Defense Ministry via email for comment.