According to Wagner’s Private Army, 32,000 of the convicts recruited from Russian prisons for military service in Ukraine have returned home. Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said today that they fulfilled their contract and commitment to the fight. In the past, women and human rights groups have expressed concern that so many criminals – including murderers – are being released prematurely back into Russian society.
Some of the convicted criminals had already committed new murders. On the other hand, Wagner’s boss sees military service as a great rehabilitation program. In a voicemail posted on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin claimed that those released later committed only 83 crimes in total. That’s 80 times fewer crimes than those released after serving their sentence.
Many killed in the battle for Bachmut
Prigozhin, who is a close confidant of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, recruited some of the prisoners in the penal camps. Putin pardoned those who signed a military service contract. The condition was to complete at least six months of combat missions in Ukraine.
In March, Prigozhin estimated the number of former prisoners released from Wagner’s ranks at 5,000. After capturing the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, he announced that he had lost 20,000 men in the fighting there, 10,000 of them just ex-prisoners. In many cases, he worked to ensure that criminals were given military burials.
Human rights groups are complaining that Russia continues to recruit criminals from prisons into military service on a massive scale. As a result, the Ministry of Defense in particular now uses the prison system to recruit fighters.