German intelligence intercepts Russian soldiers' radio calls; Bucha killing 'a strategy'

German intelligence on Wednesday, April 7 monitored radio messages of the Russian military discussing the killing of civilians in the Ukrainian northwest town of Bucha, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Thursday. In the report presented by the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) to the German parliament, the findings suggested that mass killing in the town was a part of the defense strategy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to intimidate the civilian population and deter any resistance. Some of the radio messages were assigned to civilians that were photographed dead on the street in Bucha. In one such radio message, a Russian soldier was heard on the call telling another that he and his colleagues had shot a cyclist. 

In another radio message, a Russian commander appeared to say: "First question soldiers, then shoot them.”

BND handed the information on the relevant bodies pictured in what the Ukrainian Army calls “the massacre” to the German Bundestag. The findings from the BND recordings suggest that the shootings witnessed in the Ukrainian town of Irpin and Bucha were neither accidental nor the acts on part of the Russian soldiers “who got out of control,” but a “clear defense strategy.”

German intelligence found that shadowy Russian mercenary troops "Wagner Group" played a key role in the atrocities. 

The dangerous military unit known for war crimes in Syria, Mali, Libya is trained some miles from a Russian army base in the southern city of Mol’kino in the secret base but Kremlin denies any association. European Union had imposed sanctions on the group of private Russian military contractors last year, accusing them of fomenting violence and committing human rights abuses in the Middle East, Africa, and Ukraine.

A Ukrainian soldier stands a top a destroyed Russian APC after a recent battle. Russian military officials suggest that the Kremlin is planning to concentrate its remaining strength on wresting the entirety of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region from Ukrainian control. Credit: Associated Press/Efrem Lukatsky

Wagner group soldiers with skull insignia pictured in Donetsk

Wagner group soldiers with skull insignia were also pictured by the news outlets outside the Park Inn hotel in Donetsk carrying an AK-15 assault rifle. UK’s Ministry of Defence had also said in a tweet last week that “Russia’s private military company the Wagner Group has been deployed to eastern Ukraine”.

“They are expected to deploy more than 1000 mercenaries, including senior leaders of the organization, to undertake combat operations,” it added. “Due to heavy losses and a largely stalled invasion, Russia has highly likely been forced to reprioritize Wagner Mercenary personnel for Ukraine at the expense of operations in Africa and Syria,” the UK defense ministry said. Russia is recruiting new members to fight in Ukraine alongside the Russian special forces as “mercenaries.” 

A serving mercenary in Ukraine had British Broadcasting Corp that members of the Wagner Group were contacted via encrypted messaging app Telegram several weeks before the war started. The invite was dispatched to “those with criminal records, debts, banned from mercenary groups or without an external passport” and “those from the Russian-occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk republics and Crimea”. Another serving fighter said, on condition of anonymity, that he was sent to Kharkiv and was paid £1,600 (roughly $A2700) for a month. The unit is linked with Russian President Putin’s closest ally oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin and is trained under the PMCs (private military companies).