Thread by ChrisO_wiki@mastodon.social
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- Jan 25, 2023
- #Russia
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1/ The release of murderers who have served with the Wagner Group, including the notorious "Black Realtor" Alexander Tyutin, is causing controversy in Russia due to complaints by relatives of their victims. Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin has responded uncompromisingly. ⬇️ 
2/ On the Telegram channel of the Concord Group, Prigozhin's catering firm, he replies to a Russian media query about the recent release of quadruple murderer Alexander Tyutkin, who has completed a six-month contract fighting with Wagner in Ukraine.
3/ Tyutin was a St. Petersburg real estate agent who was sentenced to 23 years' imprisonment in 2021. He was convicted of organising two contract killings, including the execution of an entire family of four. 
4/ He was caught in 2018 after arranging the murder of his niece so that he would not have to share an inheritance with her. The 'killer' he hired for 600,000 rubles ($8,666) turned out to be a policeman, tipped off by the first person he tried to hire for the job.
5/ He was found to have also organised the 2005 murder of his business partner Dmitry Zeynalov, his wife and their 10-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter. The family were shot before being finished off with an axe. Tyutin reportedly urinated on their grave after the funeral. 
6/ Tyutin was sent to penal colony no. 9 in Karelia but was released on 16 June 2022 after joining Wagner. Despite his age – he is 66 – he survived the fighting and returned to his native St. Petersburg in December. He has now reunited with his wife in Turkey.
7/ Prigozhin writes that the contributions of men like Tyutkin to the war effort far outweigh the efforts of non-criminals, to whom he refers to contemptuously as "dandelion boys":
8/ "Let me explain to you the philosophy behind prisoners' involvement in the war in Ukraine. A certain prisoner killed, as a realtor, a family of four. You don't know this family and haven't seen it. But you resent the fact.
9/ "This prisoner went to war and died. Or by some miracle survived. He is a murderer, and in the war he is worth three or four or even more dandelion boys, whose milk on their lips is still wet. Among those dandelion boys is your son, your father and your husband.
10/ You are more willing to let a killer realtor go to war than your loved ones, who, unlike the killer realtor, you will probably receive in zinc coffins.
11/ "Only don't look into the coffins, because instead of the pale, powdered face you are used to seeing at funerals, blissfully awaiting departure for heaven, you will see pieces of flesh torn apart by shrapnel from enemy guns.
12/ "Perhaps not even one person, but several, because in that hell and in that meat grinder in which they died, it was impossible for them to survive. And if he had ironically survived, he was no longer Vasya the killer realtor, but Petya the lucky warrior."
13/ Prigozhin also provides some (uncorroborated) evidence of Tyutin's role in the fighting, in the form of an apparent report from his commander, who recommends him for an award of the medal "For Courage". 
14/ The report states that on 6 November 2022, Tyutin "carried out the task of storming a fortified settlement of the Ukrainian armed forces". He discovered a camouflaged Ukrainian position and destroyed it with a grenade launcher, killing 7 Ukrainian soldiers.
15/ "Thanks to his decisive and skilful actions, the assault team was able to occupy the enemy stronghold with minimal losses and fulfil the task". Tyutin was injured in the battle but refused to be evacuated.
16/ Prigozhin is not a fan of the media questioning his fighters' bona fides – see the linked thread below. He asks if anyone from the editorial board of the enquiring publication will volunteer to join Wagner, "or are all of you pussies?" /end
