Yevgeny Prigozhin filmed telling convicts serving six months at the front: “Do not rape women” in Russia.
The first group of Russian prisoners who were offered amnesty in exchange for fighting in Ukraine have been released, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner said in a video.
Video released by Russia’s Ria Novosti news agency shows Yevgeny Prigozhin telling a group of men: “You’ve completed your contract. You have worked honorably and with dignity.”
Prigozhin said the men “should be treated [the] deepest respect of society” after completing their six-month contracts in Ukraine.
“Don’t drink a lot, don’t do drugs, don’t rape women, don’t do anything useless,” he added.
Originally composed of battle-hardened veterans of the Russian armed forces, the Wagner Group has fought in Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic and Mali, and Ukraine.
The video came after Zambia criticized Russia after a Zambian student, who was serving a prison sentence in Russia, was killed on the front lines in Ukraine after being granted amnesty for fighting in the conflict.
Prigozhin lets the first group of Wagner’s convict recruits who managed to survive 6 months in Ukraine back to their hometowns and instructs the Russian police to treat these men with “the utmost respect”. Will they be the new oprichniks as Russia swirls into darkness? pic.twitter.com/YYrtaKTF5A
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@jarotrof) January 5, 2023
out of the shadows
Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, the Wagner Group existed in the shadows, funded by founder Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch known as “Putin’s cook.”
Last year, in an interview with Al Jazeera, Marat Gabidullin, an exiled whistleblower who had campaigned for the group, said Wagner existed to reallocate power away from the military and use those who could become a security risk.
But since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Wagner mercenaries have been on the front lines with a new public persona.
Businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin (left) serves food to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during dinner at Prigozhin’s restaurant outside Moscow, 2017 [File: Misha Japaridze, Pool, AP Photo]
Conditions of Release
In September, a video circulated of a man resembling Prigozhin in a prison yard offering prisoners contracts for the war in Ukraine.
But the contracts had a long list of conditions.
In the video, the unnamed man said: “If you arrive in Ukraine and decide it’s not for you, we will consider it desertion and shoot you. Any questions guys?”
“Nobody gives themselves up,” he said, adding that recruits should have grenades with them in case of capture.
“When you die, your body will be transferred to the location you entered on the form.”
It was impossible to verify whether the man in the video was Prigozhin, but his company Concord did not deny that he was.
“Of course, if I were a prisoner, I would dream of joining this friendly team to not only redeem my debt to the Motherland, but also to be able to repay it with interest,” Concord quotes him as saying.