Mercenary Igor Mangushev, 36, has been taken to a hospital in Stakhanov in Russia’s eastern Donetsk region with a headshot wound.
The propagandist and fighter were famed as one of Russia’s most notorious TV spin doctors before going into the army using the name of Bereg.
Mercenary Igor Mangushev, 36, has been taken to a hospital in Stakhanov in Russia’s eastern Donetsk region with a headshot wound.
The propagandist and fighter was famed as one of Russia’s most notorious TV spin doctors before going into the army using the name of Bereg.
Doctors determined Mangushev was shot at close range by a handgun user.
No further details about the attack have been revealed.
Russia expert Mark Galeotti said that Mangushev’s links with Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the private military contractor Wagner, are significant and could be a “proxy attack”.
Galeotti said: “I think we can safely describe this as a hit.”
“This could be a warning, or taking a pawn off the board, or a sign that Mr. Prigozhin’s more thuggish rivals feel he is weakened enough that they can move.”
Mangushev provoked some ire last year when footage emerged of him waving a skull of a Ukrainian soldier killed on stage in Mariupol.
The twisted ultranationalist said: “Why can’t there be any reconciliation? Ukraine must be de-Ukrainized. The Russian lands of Novorossiya must be returned back.
“We are not at war with people of blood and flesh. We are at war with an idea — Ukraine as an anti-Russian state.”
Holding the skull, he was quoted by Astra media as saying: “We’re alive and this guy is already dead.
“He wasn’t lucky. We’ll make a goblet out of his skull.”
In his Telegram channel, Mangushev openly calls for the killing of civilians.
“We will burn your houses, kill your families, take away your children, and raise them as Russians,” he posted.
