As Russian human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin said in an interview for the FeyginLive channel, 20 such episodes are known.

"Over the past 7-8-9 months, a huge number of mercenaries, both from among the former prisoners whom Putin pardoned and were sent to war, and from among the civilians, realizing what kind of meat grinder it was, raised their hands and ran away to the positions of the Ukrainians. They used the "Save a Life" programme and other surrender options. And so they needed the fighters of the PMC "Wagner" to fundamentally begin to be afraid of the Ukrainians, [thought] that they could also torture.

At that moment - the end of summer and autumn 2022 - the heyday, one might say, of the figure of Yevgeny Prigozhin, when he was gaining momentum at full speed, recruiting tens of thousands of convicts, and it seemed to him that a little more and he would become on the same level with some Shoigu and Rotenberg… At this very moment, they used the cruelest, inhuman methods. They recorded it on video. … The person we will probably show on Monday (April 17), says that more than 20 people were brutally murdered extrajudicially and executed for such an experience. This system works, worked by the order of Prigozhin," says Osechkin.

Previously, prisoners who were recruited by the Wagner PMC and sent to the war against Ukraine, in conversations with journalists, noted that they were lured by high salaries and cancellation of criminal records, while warning that "those who turn back will be shot on the spot." The executions of the "guilty" PMCs were subsequently posted online. Such a practice was also confirmed by the "Wagnerian" Andrey Medvedev, who fled to Norway. He said he was aware of 10 incidents involving the killing of mercenaries.

In February, captured Wagner PMC mercenaries told The Washington Post right at the front that the killing policy had eased in recent weeks. According to them, the Wagner PMC stopped executing mercenaries due to shocking losses at the front.