Three Russian criminal authorities died in the war in Ukraine

During the war in Ukraine, three Russian criminal authorities were killed, who were sentenced in Russia to long terms for the creation of organized crime groups and murders, but last year they were recruited in the colonies to the ranks of Wagner’s PMC. This is reported in the material of the investigative group Bellingcat.

We are talking about 59-year-old Sergey Maksimenko and 55-year-old Andree Berezhnykh and Igor Kuske.

According to Bellingcat, in 1997, Maksimenko headed a criminal group called “Olympia” in the city of Penza, which was involved in the organization of prostitution, racketeering and murders of businessmen. He was later arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He served his term in Mordovia, from where he left for the war. Maksymenko died last December.

Berezhnykh also served a 25-year prison term on charges of arms trafficking, numerous murders and attempted murders committed in the Saratov region by an organized criminal group he led. It is confirmed that Berezhnykh died in Ukraine on December 8, 2022 – a month after he was recruited into Wagner’s PMC. Bellingcat notes that during Christmas, a service was held in honor of the deceased in the Balakovo Cathedral of the Holy Trinity.

Igor Kusk, according to the materials of the court that sentenced him to 23 years of imprisonment, created his criminal group in Tatarstan in 1998, which was called after his last name – “Kuskovskie”. On the account of the organized crime group there are several contract killings of businessmen. In the Wagner PMC, Kusk got from the colony to Syktyvkar, the capital of the Republic of Koma. At the same time, as Bellingcat writes, he wanted to go to fight in Ukraine even before the representatives of the private military company began to travel around the colonies and offer prisoners to join their ranks. As a result, Kusk ended up on the front line near the city of Bakhmut, where he died. It is confirmed that more than 700 people attended the funeral of a criminal authority.

• In the spring of last year, after several military defeats by the Russian army on the territory of Ukraine, “Wagner PMC” and its creator, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg businessman close to Vladimir Putin, began to recruit Russian prisoners into their ranks and send them to war. Convicts who agree to take part in hostilities must spend six months on the front lines, they are forbidden to retreat and surrender under the threat of execution. Those who remain alive after six months are promised freedom. In this way, tens of thousands of fighters were recruited into the PMC. Despite the large losses in the ranks of the Wagner prisoners, some of them, according to mass media, have already returned to Russia and received pardons.
• Private military company “Wagner” is a Russian unofficial military unit that takes part in ground operations in Syria, Africa and in the war with Ukraine. The company’s fighters are accused of committing numerous war crimes, including extrajudicial executions.