![]() ![]() Full term.”īefore Merk was imprisoned, he worked in a machine factory, and then worked briefly as a handyman before his second term. Merk: “I served the first term of 5½ years. It takes into account International Committee of the Red Cross guidance regarding publishing information about prisoners of war. The interview below is condensed and annotated with analysis of his comments by the New York Times. He had previously spent several years in prison after killing someone unintentionally while intoxicated, he said.Ī Ukrainian serviceman (left) watches while a member of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, a former criminal prisoner, sits in an interrogation room after being captured by Ukrainian soldiers near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, in March. Merk was an inmate-turned-soldier, he said, having joined the Russian army’s newly formed Storm Z prisoner unit after serving two months of a 2½-year prison sentence. The United Nations has found ill-treatment of prisoners – including executions, beatings and torture – on both sides of the war, although Ukrainian accounts coming through from Russian detention point to far more widespread and severe abuses by the Kremlin’s forces at every level. ![]() The New York Times verified his identity through court documents and social media accounts. Merk is being identified by his call sign to protect his identity for security reasons, including the possibility that he could be harmed if he is returned to the Russians in a prisoner exchange. ![]()
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