Inside Putin’s brutal Wagner mercenaries who beat victims to death with sledgehammers, castrate them & chop off fingers

PUTIN'S private army of ruthless mercenaries is unashamedly brutalising and butchering its own recruits.

The Wagner Group has been showcasing its gruesome methods of torture and execution of its own fighters they claim have committed "treason".

Warlord and Putin's "favourite chef" Yevgeny Prigozhin has been waging war in eastern Ukraine using his 50,000-strong paramilitary unit, the Wagner Group.

However, for any recruits that try to surrender, defect, escape or simply use their phones, Wagner's commanders have made their punishments visible and merciless.

Their methods have included cutting off fingers, castrations, skinned prisoners alive or bludgeoned them with a sledgehammer.

The militia group, founded in 2014, cut its teeth in Crimea and then in proxy wars across Africa and the Middle East - all the while collecting accusations of war crimes and gross human rights abuses from the UN.

They have largely been involved in Russia's eastern offensive, including in the bloodiest battles for Soledar and Bakhmut, .

In the summer, Prigozhin was reported to have personally been scouring Russia's penal colonies for lags willing to trade their prison sentences for frontline fighting in exchange for their freedom after six months.

For thousands that signed up, this freedom eluded them as the badly-trained and ill-equipped recruits took on heavy losses on Ukraine's frozen frontlines.

Ukrainian officials have referred to their role on the battlefield as “cannon fodder” - expendable soldiers to be sacrificed in the front waves, whilst the private militia’s specialist troops hang back.

Hastily-dug graves marked with wooden crosses are piling up in snow-covered feels near the Black Sea - a visible reminder of the high price convicts are paying to play Putin's war games.

The number of these bleak graveyards is growing fast and is aided by the brutal methods employed by Wagner commander's on their own troops.

Convicts have had fingers cut off for minor offences including using their mobile phones or speaking back to superiors, according to anti-torture NGO .

If they try to escape or retreat, Gulagu.net reports, they are told they will be shot and bodies of tortured soldiers are routinely burnt to hide the evidence.

Some of the new fighters have been shown a video of prisoner being skinned alive as an extreme warning to stay in line.

In late January, Ukrainian intelligence released an intercepted call between two Russian soldiers on the frontline, alluding to other extreme methods of punishment.

The soldiers can be heard saying: “The Wagnerians caught him and cut his f****** balls off."

On Monday, the twisted mercenary group released an unveified video showing the execution of a convict soldier, Dmitry Yakushchenko.

The 44-year-old had reportedly defected to Ukraine from the frontline but was handed back to Russia during a prisoner swap earlier this month.

Yakushchenko was filmed with his head taped to a block as he spoke the lines: “Today I was in the streets of Dnipro, where I received a blow to the head and lost consciousness.";

“I woke up in this room where I was told that I was going to be tried [for desertion]", the fighter said.

The barbaric video then shows his head being hit by a sledgehammer, before he is wacked twice more on the floor.

The same method of execution was used to kill fellow convict soldier Yevgeny Nuzhin, 55, in November on grounds of his "treachery" for joining the Ukrainian army.

However, doubt has been raised over the authenticity of Yakushchenko's murder as Prigozhin himself released footage that appeared to show he was still alive and claimed he has been forgiven for his "mistakes".

The casualties of this convict army could be as high as 43,000, according to Olga Romanova, head of a Russian human rights NGO for convicts.

They are sent on suicide-style missions, with claims made by Ukrainian soldiers that it is like fighting a drugged up, zombie army.