Wagner Group - Recruiting Prisoners
The White House said 18 February 2023 that the Wagner Group had suffered more than 30,000 casualties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with about 9,000 killed in action. About 90 percent of those killed in Ukraine since December 2022 were convicts, it said, a reference to Prigozhin’s recruitment of prisoners. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that Wagner continued to rely heavily on convicts, who were sent to war without training or equipment, despite recent comments from Wagner’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin that he had stopped recruiting Russian prisoners to fight in Ukraine.
Olga Romanova, a journalist and activist who has headed the prisoner rights organization Russia Behind Bars (Rus Sidyashchaya) since 2008, tells RFE/RL that this exploitation of prisoners is a continuation of the "Stalinist mentality" that has continued to dominate the unreformed prison system under Putin. The role of prisons in enabling Moscow's aggression against Ukraine is one of the ways, Romanova argued, that the antiquated system suits Putin's political needs as it is, despite numerous revelations of horrific torture and prisoner abuse in recent years.
Prigozhin appeared, "and I thought: Damn, that is brilliant -- in the bad sense of the word. He was an evil genius who tapped into a bottomless reservoir of mercenaries. Bottomless because Russian prisons are some of the most horrible places on Earth. People are so desperate to get out of there. they are ready to go to war simply to get out of prison. And that is what happened.... Putin proceeded precisely along a Stalinist path by utilizing a surplus, unneeded population. [Prison reformers talk about] how to reform prisoners, how to teach them useful professions like painter or plasterer. But why? They can just be destroyed, and we're done with it. No rise in crime rates, just into the meat-grinder. No one cares about them."
The Russian authorities recruited men for the war in Ukraine, with recruitment points for volunteer battalions already deployed in a number of regions. Volunteers continue to be recruited in Russian prisons. Russian Armed Forces’ personnel shortages may be forcing the Russian MOD to turn to non-traditional recruitment. This includes recruiting personnel from Russian prisons for the Wagner Private Military Company.
For participation in the war against Ukraine, the prisoners are promised to cancel the terms, pay off the criminal record, and in case of death - 5 million rubles for relatives. The bulk of the prisoners have no one at all: no relatives, no acquaintances, no friends - these are completely lonely people. This was 90% of the prisoners.
The military services normally screen applicants on the basis of moral character for several reasons. First, it was desirable to screen out individuals who may pose disciplinary problems during their period of service and divert resources from the performance of military duties. Research had shown that recruits with a history of criminal behavior are likely to become disciplinary problems and, in turn, separate from military service for reasons of unsuitability. Second, there was the concern that persons with criminal backgrounds, if permitted to enlist, may have a corrupting influence on other recruits. Additionally, recruits and their parents need to be assured that they are not being thrown into close association with (individuals) who are chronic offenders or who have committed serious offenses.
Conditions in prisons and detention centers varied but were often harsh and life threatening. Overcrowding, abuse by guards and inmates, limited access to health care, food shortages, and inadequate sanitation were common in prisons, penal colonies, and other detention facilities. Physical and sexual abuse by prison guards was systemic. Prisoner-on-prisoner violence was also a problem. There were reports prison authorities recruited inmates to abuse other inmates. Potable water was sometimes rationed, and food quality was poor; many inmates relied on food provided by family or NGOs. Access to quality medical care remained a problem. During the year 2021 media coverage of multiple allegations of torture at several penal colonies and testimony from victims and their family members prompted investigations by the Federal Penitentiary System.
The law provides for an independent judiciary, but judges remained subject to influence from the executive branch, the armed forces, and other security forces, particularly in high-profile or politically sensitive cases, as well as to corruption. The outcomes of some trials appeared predetermined. Acquittal rates remained extremely low. The acquittal rate in trials by jury was higher (23 percent in 2019) than in trials before a judge (0.34 percent in 2020), although acquittals by jury were sometimes overturned by judges in appellate courts. According to a 2019 report from the Agora International Human Rights Group, it was common practice for judges to remove defense attorneys from court hearings without a legitimate basis in retaliation for their providing clients with an effective defense. The report also documented a trend of law enforcement authorities using physical force to interfere with the work of defense attorneys, including the use of violence to prevent them from being present during searches and interrogations.
By September 2022 Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had reportedly recruited almost 1,000 inmates from two penal colonies in the southwestern Rostov region, promising them early release if they fight in Moscow's war against Ukraine. Prigozhin promised those who joined Russian armed forces in Ukraine will get early release in six months, adding that during the military operations in Ukraine, the inmates "can do anything they want with the Ukrainians." The inmates also said Prigozhin warned that anyone attempting to defect or escape from the battlefield would be shot dead.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces planned to recruit ten thousand volunteers in two months and send them to Donbass. In addition, it does not matter under what article a person was convicted, even if it was murder and another serious crime. The adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Anton Gerashchenko, said "Putin's new army was going to be recruited from 400,000 Russian prisoners. The army of murderers, marauders and rapists will now also be an army of imprisoned criminals".
In Russia, the recruitment of prisoners to private military companies to send them to the war in Ukraine intensified. This was due to heavy losses in the Russian army and the lack of people willing to join its ranks, according to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. The department said that recruiters are gathering at a military training ground near the Molkino farm in the Krasnodar Territory, where the Wagner PMC training base was located. According to the GUR, such a set was in the Republic of Adygea, in Rostov, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod.
At the same time, "prisoners" must wear special chevrons that will indicate their social status. They are also forbidden to have touch phones, they can only use old, push-button ones. Intelligence officials say that the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces plans to recruit ten thousand volunteers in two months. After that, they plan to relocate to the Donbass. Among the main tasks for them will be taking control of the road in the direction of Izyum-Slavyansk-Bakhmut.
They are transported by a convoy in special wagons for the transport of prisoners. At the same time, no one understands on the basis of what they are transported. On the one hand, there is, of course, a certain provision in the law that the government can release a person on parole if the term of parole had come up, providing him with a job. And the “private military campaign of Wagner”, and they are recruited there, was just a “wonderful” place of work, which will suit both the parole court, the zone management, and the Federal Penitentiary Service, and the FSB and so on.
The Institute for the Study of War (USA) noted that Russia was ready to send men with "light misconduct" to the war in Ukraine. Analysts believe that the Russian Federation will simplify all requirements in order to expand mobilization in the country and take even prisoners. On 04 July 2022, the media wrote that Wagner PMCs were sending prisoners from St. Petersburg to the Donbass. The men are sent to the war zone "to help look for the Nazis". They are promised an amnesty and a payment of 200,000 rubles [about $3,500] if they survive six months of service.
A relative of one of the prisoners recounted the advertising slogans used to lure the convicts. “They [the Nazis] are very well trained. You will be at the forefront, helping to detect the Nazis, so not everyone will return, ”he told iStories. “At first they said that about 20% would return. Then — that “almost no one will return,” he recalls. Those who survive are promised a reward of a fixed amount of rubles and an amnesty. And if he dies, they promise to pay the family a much larger amount. “It’s all just words, it won’t be recorded anywhere on paper,” a relative of the prisoner retells the content of the conversation.
The Russian human rights organization Gulagu.net, which protects the rights of prisoners, reported that it had received messages about the recruitment of prisoners for the war against Ukraine from correctional colonies in various regions of Russia, including in the Republic of Mordovia and the Nizhny Novgorod region. Gulagu.net refers to messages received on Telegram, which activists use as hot. The organization specializes in uncovering cases of ill-treatment of inmates in correctional facilities. Reports mention the recruitment of prisoners for the war, which was recorded in Mordovia, the Nizhny Novgorod region and the Krasnodar territory in southern Russia.
"IK-5 of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. About 10 people were picked up on 7/6/22. The chief called in the morning, in the evening the PMC and the general arrived. 10 minutes after the call, we were packed up with our belongings. Some were taken away, some were locked up in the hospital," one such report said. Another report mentions that "some people "in civilian clothes" also came to the institutions of the UFSIN of Mordovia," summoned prisoners with military experience and "offered to go to war."
This was reported by the portal "Important Stories". He said that the mercenary company "Wagner Group" recruits prisoners to send to Donbass as "volunteers", offering them about 200,000 rubles and amnesty. Reports came from St. Petersburg correctional colonies. Important Stories said it was unknown whether the prisoners had been recruited to fight or rebuild the infrastructure, as the prisoners' relatives put forward different versions.
Important Stories, citing sources, reported that about 50 prisoners from the St. Petersburg colonies No. 6 and No. 7 were taken to the Rostov region after being recruited to participate in the war against Ukraine. “About 40 prisoners of IK-7 “Yablonevka” were taken out of the colony today [July 6] around two in the morning. Even in the evening, no one knew that there would be some kind of crossings. At night they were awakened, forced to pack up in five minutes, and taken away. They didn’t let me call my relatives, they said that there was no time for this. According to my information, according to the documents they are being taken to the Rostov region, ”said the source of the publication.
Although Prigozhin had not acknowledged that he is the one who appeared in the video, on 16 September 2022 he issued a statement defending the practice of recruiting convicts. "Those who don't want to see prisoners fighting for private military firms, who condemn this, who don't want to do anything themselves, and who in general don't like this topic should send their children to the front," Prigozhin was quoted as saying. “Either private military companies and convicts or your children -- decide for yourselves."
Prisoner-rights groups in Russia believed some 10,000 convicts had already been shipped out to fight in Ukraine. Ukrainian military personnel in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut say they believed they were fighting Russian prisoners instead of Russian soldiers, according to a 18 September 2022 report in The New York Times. The publication said it has analyzed a video posted online that apparently shows representatives of The Wagner Group, a private military company, promising inmates they could win their freedom if they completed a six-month, combat tour in Ukraine.
The head of Russian mercenary group Wagner, who had been entangled in a power struggle with the defence ministry, announced 10 March 2023 the opening of recruitment centers in dozens of cities. "Recruitment centres for PMC Wagner have opened in 42 Russian cities," Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a statement. "Despite the colossal resistance of the Ukrainian armed forces, we will move forward." Fighters will be recruited in sports centres and martial arts clubs, according to a list released by Prigozhin. "Despite the colossal resistance of the Ukrainian armed forces, we will move forward," he said. Prigozhin had several times claimed battlefield victories ahead of the Russian military, lambasted Russia's top brass and accused the military of not sharing ammunition with his forces.
Prigozhin announced on 09 February 2023 that the group had ended its prison recruitment scheme. The UK Defense Ministry said that this may have been caused by "direct rivalry between the Russian Ministry of Defence and Wagner." The British Ministry of Defense said 10 February 2023 in an intelligence update on the war in Ukraine that recruitment from Russian prisons had decreased since late last year. "Data from the Russian Federal Penal Service had already suggested a drop-off in the rate of prisoner recruitment since December 2022," it said. "News of the harsh realities of Wagner service in Ukraine has probably filtered through to inmates and reduced the number of volunteers," the ministry surmised. "The regular Russian military has likely now also deployed the vast majority of the reservists called up under 'partial mobilization,'" the ministry said. "The Russian leadership faces the difficult choice of either continuing to deplete its forces, scale back objectives, or conduct a further form of mobilization," the ministry said.
More than 5,000 former criminals had been pardoned after finishing their contracts to fight in Russia's Wagner mercenary group against Ukraine, the founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on 25 March 2023. "At the present time, more than 5,000 people have been released on pardon after completing their contracts with Wagner," Prigozhin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said in an audio clip posted on Telegram. Prigozhin said just 0.31% of those pardoned after Wagner service had gone on to commit crime, a figure he said was 10-20 times less than the standard indicators.
In one video, Prigozhin was seen telling fighters: "Remember life has given you this chance: you didn’t dodge the honour, you didn’t arse it up: you defended the Motherland, all of you were ready to die in these past 180 days".
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