Brutal footage shows Wagner troops beating a commander with shovels then leaving him badly wounded

Russian fighters have been filmed dragging their wounded commander away from the frontline before beating him with shovels.

The men, who were identified as Wagner mercenary group soldiers, were filmed along the battlefield in Bakhmut in the Donbas region where fierce fighting continues to rage.

The men rain down successive blows on their wounded commander as shovels are filmed thrusting down onto him behind a barn. 

The extraordinary footage of the dissenting soldiers contributes to the ongoing reports of diminished morale among Russia’s troops and mercenary units.

In the drone footage, four Wagner troops carry their commander through a landscape of demolished buildings away from the battlefield in Bakhmut.

The Wagner group is a paramilitary organisation first deployed in the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and now a private extension of the Russian army. They have close personal ties to Vladimir Putin with his crony Yevgeny Prigozhin heading the barbaric group.

Each man appears to be clinging on to one of the commander’s arms or legs as they carefully pull him across the war-torn area.

The men then drop him some metres away at a barn door shortly before they proceed to beat him.

Source of data and images: dailymail