Brutal footage shows Wagner troops beating a commander with spades, then leaving him badly injured on Bakhmut’s front lines as the morale of Putin’s army of rapists and murderers plummets

Footage was captured of Russian fighters dragging their wounded commander away from the front line before beating him with spades.

The men, identified as Wagner soldiers, were filmed in Bakhmut in the Donbass region, where heavy fighting continues.

A Ukrainian military drone captured the brutal incident earlier this week before it was publicized on Ukrainian social media channels.

The men rain successive blows of kicks on their wounded commander behind a shed, seriously injuring him.

It is not yet clear why the men targeted their commander, but the extraordinary images of the dissident soldiers add to reports of falling morale among Russian troops and mercenaries.

Each man seems to be holding onto one of the commander’s arms or legs as they drag him through the war-torn area.

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

The Wagner Group is a paramilitary organization first deployed with the 2014 annexation of Crimea and is now a private extension of the Russian military. You have close personal ties with Vladimir Putin, with his friend Yevgeny Prigozhin at the head of the barbarian group.

Each man seems to be holding onto one of the commander’s arms or legs as they drag him through the war-torn area.

The men dropped him at a shed door a few meters away just before they were going to beat him.

A second clip shows the Wagner forces partially hidden between two structures, with the wounded commander presumably lying on the ground.

At this point, shovels can be seen swinging in the air and hitting the ground behind the wall of the barn.

The extraordinary Ukrainian drone footage is believed to show successive strikes against the commander, whose fate is unknown.

The new footage coincides with reports of low morale and disagreements between Russian troops and mercenaries, which have been constant throughout the war but appear to have increased in recent months.

The Wagner Group has close personal ties to Vladimir Putin (left) and his friend Yevgeny Prigozhin (right) leads the barbarian group.

The men then put the commander down in front of a shed door a few meters away just before they hit him

A second cut then shows the Wagner troops partially hidden between two structures, with the wounded commander presumably lying on the ground

You see arms launching spades into the air before falling to the ground behind the wall of the barn

Wagner troops are reportedly threatened with execution if they fail to advance or make significant progress on the front line.

Ukrainian troops reported their bodies lying on the battlefield after being cut.

As both Kiev and Moscow continue to escalate their campaigns, brutal fighting has been ongoing for months around Bakhmut in the Donbass region.

The city had a population of around 75,000 before the war, but has now been largely leveled into a battlefield.

Putin’s troops and mercenaries have made advances encircling the region from the north and south, but Kiev says the garrison is holding out.