‘Professional boxer’ puts Wagner mercenary in a coma

A Wagner mercenary who had recently returned to Russia after waging war in Ukraine he was severely beaten by a “professional boxer” and left in a coma, according to local media reports.

Alexander Kozhevin, 32, apparently dodged a lengthy prison term by joining the ranks of Russia’s notorious shadow army; he was sentenced to 11 years in 2020 for large-scale drug sales, according to Yekaterinburg online.

His mother, Lyudmila, expressed her outrage that her son’s attacker was still “walking free” in an interview with the local media outlet, pointing the finger at an unidentified “professional boxer” who she says is well known. in the city of Artyomovsky in the Sverdlovsk region.

“He knocked him out and started kicking him in the head, breaking his occipital bone. It was the punch of a professional boxer,” he said.

The fight reportedly occurred in the city’s Victory Square, where many young people had gathered to socialize.

“They did an operation almost a day after the incident. A neurosurgeon from Yekaterinburg was called to the intensive care unit, Sasha was not transportable. She had a bruise removed and her skull cracked open. Now she is in a coma, we are praying for him,” she said. “I asked the doctors: ‘What is his condition? Tell me the truth, will she live? They reply: ‘It’s an open question.’

“They took his bank cards, his phone and when they beat him, they demanded that he give them the PIN code of the card and the password of the phone. … I think they attacked him to rob him. Because he has a lot of money, ”he said.

Kozhevin had reportedly returned from the war in late April after completing a six-month contract with Wagner. The group offers income of 240,000 rubles ($2,875) a month and a pardon to inmates who agree to go kill Ukrainians.

He apparently followed the war after his return home, sharing a video on social media of Wagner raising the Russian flag in Ukraine’s Bakhmut last month.

Kozhevin is not the first former Wagner mercenary to return home to violence. Last month, a former Wagner fighter shot dead in the Irkutsk region at his own welcome party.