As the war in Ukraine continues, Russia begins to face an increasingly serious problem – the lack of enough soldiers to fight in the occupied territories.
And that leads to unorthodox ways for Russian forces to fill their ranks, including recruiting prisoners serving long sentences in prison colonies across the country.
Russian oppositionists and activists, including the platform Gulagu.net, directed against corruption and torture in Russia, which unites more than 19 thousand independent human rights defenders, volunteers and participants, are alarming about this.
The platform released videos earlier this week showing mercenaries from the Wagner Private Army trying to recruit prisoners from the IK-1 UFSIN colony located in the Republic of Adygea, in the Southern Federal District of the Russian Federation.
https://t.co/7mAUzkn4FC posted a video in which IK-1 UFSIN prisoners in Adygea are being recruited for the war in Ukraine.
Human rights activists write that PMC Wagner engages in recruitment. https://t.co/7mAUzkn4FC they claim that about 300 people have agreed to go and fight in this colony. pic.twitter.com/B93RAHJg0R
— martin🇬🇷 (@milejkluk) July 11, 2022
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“PMC (Private Military Company – b.r.) Wagner is recruiting. About 300 people from this colony have agreed to go and fight,” said a video shared via Gulagu’s Twitter account. net.
According to sources on the platform, the recruitment of soldiers is carried out by the Wagner mercenaries. It is reported that recruitment was carried out in prisons throughout Russia, including for IK-9 near the city of Shakhty, Rostov Oblast, IK-1 in Semiluki, Voronezh Oblast, IK-5 in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, IK-7 Yablonevka and IK-6 Obukhovo near St. Petersburg and others.
According to exiled Russian activist Vladimir Osechkin, recruitment began in the form of “motivational meetings”, with prisoners promised jobs and then pardons if they fought long enough in the “military operation”.
“Motivational work is carried out with them, they are promised freedom in exchange for participation in military operations and in demining and building reconstruction operations on the territory of Donbass,” explains Osechkin on his Telegram profile.
However, according to him, the prisoners were warned that they would not be officially included in the Russian army and, accordingly, they would not be given any documents or insignia. Also if they die, their bodies will not be returned to their relatives.
“They promise money to those who survive. In practice, they were not given time to think and consult with their relatives. On July 3, the first ones who passed the selection are taken out of prison,” he also wrote.
Information about the recruitment of prisoners to “Wagner” to fight in Ukraine is also confirmed by stories of relatives of people serving sentences in the colonies IK-7 “Yablonevka” and IK-6 “Obukhovo” near St. Petersburg, where the mercenaries are recruited.
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According to their accounts, the prison “volunteers” were promised a payment of 200,000 Russian rubles ($3,155) and an amnesty. For this purpose, they must have completed a minimum of 6 months of service (if they return from Ukraine alive).
The families of those killed in Ukraine will be compensated with 5 million rubles ($79,113).
According to the stories of the relatives of those convicted from Yablonevka, cited by the IStories website, “checkers” arrived at the prison colony and talked to some of the prisoners serving their sentences there, persuading them to accept the offer and “protect the Motherland”.
As the “checkers” in question say, if the prisoners accept the deal, they will be escorted to the Donbas, where their job will be to “find Nazis.”
Prisoners were also told they would be placed on the front lines and therefore “not all will return”.
About 200 convicts were said to be interested in joining the mercenaries, but after rigorous tests, including a lie detector test, only about 40 signed up as volunteers.
“If the worst happens, I’ll get you an apartment,” a prisoner told his wife. However, according to him, the fact that the proposal includes closing your criminal record makes him think for himself.
The relatives of the convicts also say that they requested a meeting with the head of the prison colony in Yablonevka to get more information, but he refused to meet with them.
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It is believed that the inclusion of “Wagner” in the campaign to recruit new soldiers was ordered personally by President Vladimir Putin. For years, the mercenary company has been rumored to be directly linked to the Kremlin and to act as an unofficial mouthpiece for Russia’s foreign policy ambitions.
Wagner fighters have participated in a number of missions in places where Russia has a direct interest as a state, including Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Mali, Eastern Ukraine and others.
It was during the events in Eastern Ukraine in 2014 that “Wagner” was discussed more seriously for the first time as Moscow’s unofficial military force, as the mercenaries there fought on the side of the pro-Russian separatists from Donetsk and Luhansk.
Now the company again has an important role in Ukraine. In June, after a Soviet Igla anti-aircraft missile system shot down a Russian Su-25 near Svetlodarsk, a mercenary from the Wagner group was captured.
The captured man, Andrii Volodymyrovych Fedorchukov, admitted during interrogation that he was a mercenary of the private military group Wagner and was hired to kill Ukrainians for a salary of 205,000 rubles a month.
Mercenaries are becoming an increasingly important element of Russian forces, amid growing discontent in the regular army and a growing number of Russian soldiers, including officers, refusing to fight in Ukraine.
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Now, according to the information, in addition to fighting against the Ukrainian forces and recruiting new soldiers among the prisoners, “Wagner” has also received a direct order to recruit foreigners from their other missions to fight on the Russian side in the conflict.
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