THE Russian private military company Wagner has stopped recruiting prisoners for him war in Ukraine its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin announced on Thursday (9/2).
“The recruitment of prisoners by the private military company Wagner has completely stopped,” Mr. Prigozhin pointed out when asked via social networking sites for comment on the specific issue by a Russian media outlet.
“We fulfill all our obligations to those who work for us now,” he added, as reported by the Athens News Agency.
Wagner reportedly began recruiting inmates into Russia’s gigantic prison system in the summer of 2022with Mr. Prigozhin, a catering businessman himself imprisoned for nine years during the Soviet Union, offering convicts favors if they survive six months in Ukraine.
The company has not released information on how many convicts have joined its ranks.
However, Prison Service figures released in November showed the prison population fell by more than 20,000 between August and November.
This is its biggest reduction in the last decade or more.
In December, the Reuters news agency, citing imgs close to the American intelligence services, reported that Wagner has deployed 40,000 convicts on Ukrainian territory, that in other words most of its personnel participating in the war are criminals.
Wagner has played an increasingly central role in the conflict in recent months. The company is considered a spearhead in the battle for Bakhmut, in the Donetsk region, which Russian forces have been trying to capture for months. Moreover, Mr. Prigozhin was the first to announce on January 11 the capture of nearby Solentar.
Source: News Beast
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