“Defense in Russia is indeed recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine” | War Ukraine and Russia

The news site is based on stories from relatives of prisoners in a penal colony in the Ryazan and Stavropol regions. Both are prisons where specific employees of the police, security services and the army serve a sentence.

“On September 27, a few people from the Ministry of Defense came to IK-4 (the penal colony in Stavropol),” says the brother of a prisoner there. “My brother said that before this meeting, the prison board had drawn up lists of interested parties. Only people from this tentative list were called to meet people who looked very much like generals. They didn’t introduce themselves.”

According to the man, his brother was motivated to “defend the fatherland”. He also had combat experience: he previously signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense twice and already in 2014 took part in combat in the Donbas, in eastern Ukraine.

The prisoner also mentioned Wagner, a private Russian mercenary army that does odd jobs in countries around the world. The boss of the fighting organization is Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose company also caters for the Kremlin and is therefore nicknamed ‘Putin’s chef’.

A video of Prigozhin already leaked in September in which he personally recruits recruits for Wagner in a Russian prison. This has sparked a stir in Russia, as many believe it is unethical to recruit convicted murderers and rapists into a military campaign in exchange for their release when the contract is served.

Also see: This is how Russians recruit prisoners for war in Ukraine

The brother of the prisoner in Stravropol tells Vazjnye istorii that Wagner also tried to recruit in IK-4. But the prisoner did not accept that offer. “They were told they could start cutting up Ukrainians. My brother said he didn’t like that, that it wasn’t the defense of the homeland.”

Gulagu.net, which investigates abuses in Russian prisons, also reports prisoner recruitment by the Russian Defense Ministry. This is partly based on a source in detention camp IK-11 in Nizhny Novgorod. Defense employees would have wanted to recruit a total of three hundred convicts there. If too few interested parties came forward, they would still be sent by force or end up in solitary confinement in the penal camp.

Vazjnyje istorii suspects that the ministry mainly recruits convicts from prison camps for former law enforcement employees. There are just over twenty.

According to Olga Romanova, director of the Foundation for Russian Detainees, Wagner has already recruited at least 3,000 prisoners. “That’s the first round,” Romanova told independent news site Cholod. “Almost all of them have been killed. And the recruitment rounds continue: there are many who want to go to war.”

Romanova says the recruits are being deposited in the Rostov region, which is adjacent to Ukraine. “There they get a dry ration, three to four hours to eat and sleep; the rest of the time is serious training. They will then be sent to the front in the Luhansk region within ten to fourteen days.”

Also see: Russian recruit: “We have not received any training”

Also see: Torture chamber discovered under police station in Izyum, Ukraine