In the coming weeks, thousands of Russian convicts, who have fought for the Wagner group, will most likely be pardoned and released.
That is what the British Ministry of Defense writes in its daily intelligence update Tuesday.
Up to 40,000 convicts in Wagner
The US estimated in January that there were around 50,000 Wagner soldiers in Ukraine, including 40,000 prison recruits who had been promised amnesty if they survived half a year of war.
– Wagner’s recruitment of prisoners reached its peak in the fall of 2022, where convicts were offered to have their sentences expunged in exchange for six months of military service.
The intelligence report states that it is assumed that almost half of the recruited prisoners have either been injured or killed.
– Evidence from Russia testifies that the Wagner group is true to its promises to pardon those who have survived, they write.
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Cannot recruit new prisoners
Furthermore, British intelligence writes that it is assumed that the Wagner group no longer has permission to recruit more Russian prisoners. Therefore, the aforementioned pardons will go beyond the group’s access to soldiers, since they cannot be replaced as easily as before.
– Suddenly, violent criminals – with traumatic experiences from the war – will pose a significant challenge to Russia’s civil society.
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Need for new soldiers
The Wagner group plans to recruit around 30,000 new mercenaries by mid-May, says founder Yevgenij Prigozhin.
Prigozhin said in a voice message published on Telegram on Sunday that the Wagner group’s recruitment centers recruit between 500-800 new soldiers per day on average. According to him, such centers were opened in 42 Russian cities last week.
He did not provide any evidence for the claim. The Wagner group has been fighting for months at Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine and has suffered heavy losses. The battle for the city, which has been going on since the summer, is the longest of the war.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, around 30,000 Wagner soldiers have either deserted or been killed or wounded. The figure has not been independently confirmed.
According to Prigozhin, the current recruitment is going better than he expected, and those who volunteer are reportedly in better physical shape than the prison recruits.
He has been talking up the group’s role in Russian warfare for months. At the same time, he has claimed that the Russian military leadership is trying to destroy the group and that the mercenaries are being denied new supplies of ammunition.
