• Members of Russia’s Wagner Group were murdered.
• Ukraine attacked a hotel in Kadiivka.
• Telegram channels showed a structure in ruins.

According to the governor of the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, members of Russia’s Wagner Group were murdered when Ukrainian forces attacked a hotel where they were located.

Exiled Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said Ukraine attacked a hotel in Kadiivka, west of Luhansk, on Sunday.

Telegram channels showed a structure in ruins.

Haidai: “They had a small pop where Wagner HQ was.”

“Many died,” he claimed.

Russia’s defense ministry didn’t immediately react, and Reuters couldn’t independently verify the report.

Local officials told Ukrainian media that the hotel had been shuttered for some time. Russian state news agency TASS claimed on its Telegram channel that a hotel in Stakhanov – the Russian name for Kadiivka – was destroyed by a Ukrainian HIMARS missile attack and rescue workers were removing wreckage.

Haidai didn’t offer casualty numbers, but he stated survivors had poor medical care.

At least 50% of survivors will die before receiving medical care, he predicted. “They’ve stolen equipment even in Luhansk.”

Haidai has reported Ukrainian strikes on other Luhansk targets, including the Wagner headquarters in Popasna in August.

The Wagner Group, a violent fighting group of mercenaries with Russia’s military interests in mind, operates in

Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, and Mali and has been accused of torture and death.

Wagner, controlled by Putin supporter Yevgeny Prigozhin, launched its first office in Saint Petersburg in November.

The EU has accused Wagner, whose members are primarily former service members, of human rights abuses, and the US and EU have sanctioned Prigozhin. The EU accused the Wagner Group of torture and illegal killings in 2021.

Lemekani Nyirenda, 23, died fighting for Wagner in Ukraine and his body landed in Lusaka on Sunday.

Nyirenda was studying nuclear engineering in Russia when he was convicted of drug charges in April 2020. Later, he was pardoned under a special amnesty on the condition that he die in Ukraine.

In November, Wagner chief Prigozhin admitted recruiting Nyirenda from prison, saying the Zambian volunteered to fight Ukraine.

Zambian Foreign Minister Stanley Kakubo stated Russia’s Sergey Lavrov told him by phone that Nyirenda was pardoned on August 23, 2022 to join the military.

Kakubo stated Russia allowed prisoners to be pardoned in exchange for participating in the Ukraine invasion.

Nyirenda’s father says his son was serving a nine-year drug sentence when he was “conscripted” to fight.

Money owed to Nyirenda by Wagner, together with his amnesty, recruiting, and death documents, will be given to a Zambian representative who will follow his remains, the minister added.

Zambia would try to ensure nothing like this happens to a Zambian student in Russia and that no other Zambians are in Russian prisons, Kakubo added.

[embedpost slug=”ukraine-launches-missile-attack-on-russian-occupied-melitopol”]