Russia’s craziest move in its war against Ukraine is fast becoming a crisis as military leaders lose control of freed prison inmates in exchange for action on the battlefield.
About 20 armed inmates have fled the front lines in occupied Donetsk in recent days, and the Russian military has been forced to launch a manhunt for members of its own team, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Thursday. Three of the “fugitives” were killed in the ensuing search, Ukrainian authorities said, noting wryly: “Hit your own so others will be afraid, as they say.”
The hunt for the other fleeing inmates was reportedly ongoing. The news comes just two days after a suspected Russian deserter who fled the battlefield in occupied Donbass in Ukraine crossed the border into Russia before opening fire, injuring two police officers. Independent media identified the shooter as a prisoner recruited for the war.
Many experts saw the prison recruitment program for what it was from the start—a convenient way to bolster Russia’s young troops with men deemed readily available – it seems many of the inmates are finally coming to that realization themselves.
Last month’s public sledgehammer execution of Wagner defector Yevgeny Nuzhin certainly didn’t help matters, no matter how much Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mastermind behind the prison’s recruitment program, told inmates they would go down in history as “heroes.” .
Now Russian detainees say there have been other executions of those alleged to have “betrayed” the mercenary group – and would-be recruits are being shown videos of them.
An inmate at a penal colony in the Far East told the BBC’s Russian service that Wagner recruiters showed execution videos to inmates in the facility’s lounge.
In a video played to a group of inmates who expressed an interest in joining Wagner, he said a man said to the camera, “‘I, so and so, am a traitor and a bitch, I have my own left at the front.’ and then they shoot him in the back of the head.”
Another inmate at another colony told the BBC he was also shown another video of a person being hung from an iron beam.
Sources close to Wagner were quoted as telling the BBC there had been at least three such executions, one of which called them “training videos”.
Olga Romanova, the head of the human rights group Russia Behind Bars, said detainees reported several dozen extrajudicial killings of prisoners thrown into the war.
“I know they’re going to kill me.”
Russian inmates captured by Ukraine have also reportedly started asking not to be returned to Russia in a prisoner exchange, fearing they would be executed like Nuzhin.
An inmate who signed up for Wagner in Ukraine and was subsequently captured by the Ukrainian side was seen in video asking not to be sent back over the weekend.
Identified as Alexander Bolchev by the independent Russian newspaper Verstka, he told a Ukrainian journalist: “I don’t want a swap because they will kill me right away. I know they will kill me.”
One of his female relatives told the BBC the same thing: “It’s good that he’s alive but they’re going to hand him over and he’s going to be killed, he’s definitely going to be killed.”
Experts also say prison recruitment could prove a “disaster” for ordinary Russians.
“The social situation in the country could suffer seriously after these prisoners return from the war zone and have their sentences reduced or released in blood to ‘punish’ their crimes,” Alexander Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military expert, told iStories. “And they will not only return with the baggage of the crimes committed in Russia and Ukraine, but also with a post-traumatic stress disorder that no psychologist will treat.”