We knew that the deal proposed in Russian prisons by Yevgeny Prigokhine – six months of front-line combat in Ukraine against automatic release – to replenish the ranks of his private Wagner militia was awakening some vocations. This weekend, one of them provoked an unexpected response.
On Sunday, Mikhail Popkov appeared on state television and announced his desire to join the mercenary squad to fight the Ukrainians there. The man is well known to the Russians: he is, without a doubt, the worst serial killer ever for him.
route of a murderer
Mikhail Popkov is now 58 years old. He was born in the industrial city of Norilsk in eastern Siberia, famous for hosting one of the most sinister gulags of the Stalin era. He later set sail for eastern Russia and became a policeman in Irkutsk. But the police member becomes a predator. Later, explaining his crimes by his contempt for “frivolous women,” as noted here by CNews, he uses his service car to drive prostitutes, waiters, or passers-by to isolated locations, kill, maim, and possibly rape them. All during a period that goes from 1992 until his arrest in 2012.
Mikhail Popkov was first sentenced to a life sentence for 22 murders in 2015, then a second after he confessed to around 50 more. Recognized as the author of 78 murders, he has since conceded five more, a terrible toll of 83 victims. A carnage that led public opinion to forge him two nicknames: “the werewolf” and “the madman from Angarsk”. And it is therefore to this man that Russian state television held the spittoon in his prison near Kazakhstan on Sunday to express his desire to join the ranks of the Wagner group on the Ukrainian front.
The killer who didn’t like the cold
In this interview, broadcast in the tweet below, Mikhail Popkov responds to the journalist behind bars. He seems to be struggling to express himself, and at times, judging by the captions in the screenshot, he does some weird flips and turns. The interview begins with this broad question: “What is your dream?” “Join the army,” replies the prisoner. However, he continues: “If I say that it is my wish, it would not be entirely sincere. After all, it is not a video game, it is not a novel, a superhero story.”
A moment of clarity? A bit cynical because he adds: “But staying true, and to be honest and objective, if they make me wait again during the January-February period, the coldest period – for me, frost, there is no worse – then I sign immediately.” “It’s just that from a cold trench to a warm room, how long can you last?” He asks.
The failure of Wagner’s hiring policy
Not knowing if he is referring to his career as a policeman or a hit man -or both-, Mikhail Popkov goes even further: “And if I think about my military profile, I think he is wanted right now.” “Of course, the techniques are a bit more modern these days, radio waves and all, but even though I’ve been in prison for ten years, I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble doing it again.” believes it is good to affirm
Whether Russia and the Wagner group are as desperate to accede to the serial killer’s candidacy remains to be seen. The Wagner-orchestrated recruitment campaign in the prisons of the Russian Federation is in any case a bitter failure. According to figures released by the Ukrainian presidency, and reported on Monday by TF1, of the 38,000 prison soldiers deployed to the front by Yevgeny Prigojine’s militia, 29,000 are already out of action.
Source: BFM TV
