A leading expert on Russia’s prison system, Olga Romanova, said Kremlin’s Latest Recruitment Tactics In The Ukraine War is something of her “worst nightmares”.
Yevgeny Prigozhin — the head By Vladimir Putin shadow private army, Wagner’s group—Has made trips to Russian prison camps to lure convicted criminals to fight in Ukraine, according to accounts from military analysts and videos that have appeared on Telegram from journalists Russian prison.
And according to Romanova, who has spent the past 15 years of her life tracking Russia’s prisoner numbers as head of Russia Behind Bars, the recruitment campaign is targeting some of the “worst criminals.” ” of Russia.
“Putin’s plan was to recruit at least 50,000 convicts and Prigozhin, himself a former prisoner, sent more than 3,000” prisoners to Ukraine, including “mass murderers, robbers and at least a cannibal,” Romanova told The Daily Beast.
As part of their work, Russia Behind Bars provides legal and charitable assistance to Russia’s half a million prison population, and is in regular contact with the families of inmates. Romanova told The Daily Beast that they started hearing reports of new recruits in prison being deployed to Ukraine as early as June. “If in July and August they passed through the prisons of central Russia, yesterday they went to the Urals, [which] there are more than 35 prison camps and prisons. “
On September 3, Romanova’s team said they were horrified to recognize a prisoner they had worked with in a video released by Ukrainian officials of a captured Russian fighter. According to Romanova, he is still wearing some of the bras that the organization provided him as part of the aid package.
Beaten and bloody handcuffed, the man was recorded saying that there were “brutals”—free civilian recruits—and “kashniks”—Russian convicts—who were fighting in Ukraine. “We are not a battalion, we are just a bunch of people. Wagner took us… showed us what to do but you can’t learn in a week,” said the prisoner, who Ramonova said was sentenced to nine years in prison before being sent to fight in Ukraine, said in the video.
A lawyer for Russia Behind Bars, Ruslan Vakhapov, said the Wagner Group visited at least three prisons in Russia’s Yaroslavl region. “Originally, Wagner caught most of the people convicted for murder — Article #105 of the Penal Code — and robbery — Article 162. But now their fishing nets catch everyone, including cannibals. So far, we are aware of a case of recruitment of Russian cannibals,” Vakhapov told The Daily Beast.
“It’s time to look into this phenomenon, before they start recruiting into orphanages.“
“The most murderous figures will go to Ukraine,” he added. “I just spoke to the wife of a convicted serial killer in Kostroma. He was supposed to be behind bars for another 5 years, but Wagner freed him, so the wife feared he might [come back] and attacked her for filing for divorce”.
Vakhapova and Romanova told The Daily Beast that since late June, Russia Behind Bars has received a flurry of panicked phone calls from inmates in remote prison camps and their relatives to discuss recruiting. warrior grave. According to them, Prigozhin, the so-called “Putin’s chef,” promised his freedom after serving six months on the front lines.
“A lot of the killers we tracked were recruited and they died like flies in Ukraine. Out of the first 42 inmates recruited in the first group, only three survived, out of the 66 inmates in the second group, only six returned, including one who lost his arm,” said Romanova. told The Daily Beast.
In Ukraine, Prigozin’s army is often referred to as the “army of orcs and goblins”, referring to Lord of the Rings.
Anton Naumlyuk, founder of Ukraine’s Graty media group, told The Daily Beast: “By arming these goblins and sending psychopaths and lunatics to the front, Putin shows the weakness of his army.
Officially, Russian law prohibits private military operations, but Putin often decorates Wagner Group’s private mercenaries for their covert operations in Africa, the Middle East, and Ukraine. The Wagner Group conducted its first operations in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine in 2015.
“This phenomenon… should be widely discussed, as it embodies the core of Russian power,” a veteran of the Wagner Group, Marat Gabidullin, told The Daily Beast. “Prigozhin has unlimited powers, he can open the door to any prison colony. It’s time to look into this phenomenon, before they start recruiting in orphanages. “
