The information comes from Vladimir Romanov, famous Russian military blogger from the Crimean Peninsula. On his Telegram channel with 137,000 followers, Romanov has published video clips in which several men are seen admitting to selling drugs. In a clip, one of the arrested says he works for the traffic police in the “Donetsk People’s Republic”, one of the territories in Ukraine that Russia annexed last year. The videos also show large sums of money and bags of what appears to be cannabis.
The Wagner men themselves are said to have been arrested by the authorities of the occupying power, suspected of kidnapping.
SVT assesses the films as credible
SVT has seen the films and we judge them to be credible. However, we know nothing for sure about the Wagner men’s intentions. Potentially, the whole thing could be about an internal settlement about the drug market in occupied territory in Ukraine.
Last fall, “Vjorstka”, a site for investigative journalism, reported that drug abuse is widespread in the Russian army. The Russian exile journalists who run the site have spoken to many soldiers, who say that drugs are plentiful easy to get hold of at the front in Ukraine. It is about both marijuana and synthetic drugs.