Russian army recruitment by Wagner Group intensifies: media investigation into how Russian prisoners are being sent to war with Ukraine

The recruitment of prisoners from penal colonies in Siberia and Russia’s Far East has only intensified since the emergence of a video showing the execution of Yevgeny Nuzhin, a former inmate of Ryazan Penal Colony No. 3 and a member of the Wagner Group, with a sledgehammer. Wagner [an infamous Russian private military company, or PMC] has "conscripted" people from at least six regions east of the Urals in November alone, taking 150-200 people from each penal colony.  

Source: Russian news outlet Sibir.Realii (Siberia.Reality), citing human rights activists and sources in the penal colonies concerned

Details: According to Sibir.Realii, Wagner Group representatives visited correctional labour colonies in at least six regions in Siberia and Far East in November; these included Primorye (Primorsky Krai), Tyumen Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Yakutia, and Kuzbas (Kuznetsky Coal Basin). 

According to an inmate from a penal colony in Primorye, the recruitment process went on for several days. 100-200 people are taken from each establishment, mostly inmates who are serving 25-30-year sentences in a maximum-security unit.

A human rights activist from Yakutia described how Wagner Group representatives arrived at a penal colony in the region on 14 November. It was all top secret, but the information leaked anyway. 

The activist said the "Wagnerites" had visited a few high-security penal colonies and "took literally everyone, with no exceptions in terms of articles [i.e. the category of the offence for which they were imprisoned – ed.]". Some prisoners were threatened with "extra time" if they refused. 

Anna, the wife of a convict from Penal Colony No. 37, said she was in touch with her husband’s cellmate, who told her that her husband had apparently been forced to sign an agreement to go to fight in the war. According to the cellmate, prisoners "are electrocuted and waterboarded". Anna is convinced that her husband "would not sign up for this voluntarily - he only had four years left."

A relative of another convict in the same penal colony said prisoners were being tied to hot radiators for a few hours to make them agree to sign a contract with the Wagner Group.

Those who refused were allegedly beaten up so badly that they "can’t even walk any more".

Convicts were recruited from another penal colony, in Kemerovo, in late October. The prisoners say they had almost a month "to think about it" [the proposal to join Wagner]. 

According to one convict, when the Wagnerites arrived, the mobile connection was shut down and the inmates were made to watch "The Best in Hell", a film about the Wagner Group. The inmates were promised a full amnesty and a monthly "salary" of 100,000 roubles [approximately US$1,650].  

The convict said about 100 people from the penal colony apparently agreed to join up. They were taken in stages over 10 days. The first ones were aged between 20 and 50; those over 50 were considered on a case-by-case basis. They took everyone, even those with HIV and hepatitis. 

A convict from Penal Colony No. 29 in Kemerovo told Sibir.Realii that recruitment there started before the "sledgehammer execution", but any others in the colony who had been willing to go to fight in the war "vanished" after the video came out. He said many prisoners had been planning to do exactly what Nuzhin did, that is, to "surrender and then live freely, pretending to be refugees".

Prisoners’ relatives in Krasnoyarsk Krai said their family members broke off all contact with them at one point, and they later found out that they had been recruited by the Wagner Group.

Ivan Astashin, a human rights activist, says that the Wagner Group’s recruitment already covers the whole of Russia, even its Far East. In addition to Norilsk and Primorye, recruitment has recently been reported in penal colonies in Zabaikalsky Krai. Astashin added that Penal Colony No. 15 has a lot of inmates who would be willing to go and fight in the war; almost everyone being kept in strict conditions of detention for breaking prison rules (about 70 people) submitted applications.   

Sibir.Realii also found that dozens of convicts from penal colonies in Amur, Irkutsk and Tyumen oblasts are to be illegally sent to the war with Ukraine.

Background:

• On 13 November, it became known that a Russian citizen had been executed without trial. His head was taped to a concrete block and then smashed in with a sledgehammer. Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, has hinted that this was his mercenaries’ doing. The video was probably intended to dissuade Russian conscripts from surrendering.
• A video showing the arrest of two soldiers who refused to go to war later appeared on Russian Telegram channels. The soldiers were pointedly detained as they lined up in formation.
• On 20 September, the Russian State Duma [the lower house of the Federal Assembly, the national legislature of the Russian Federation – ed.] introduced the concepts of mobilisation and wartime into the Criminal Code, and also approved amendments to the penalty for desertion during mobilisation or wartime.
• On 24 September, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law amending the Criminal Code to specify harsher penalties for desertion, looting and surrender.
• Under this law, failure of subordinates to comply with an order issued by their superior in the established procedure during martial law, in wartime, or in conditions of armed conflict or combat operations, and refusal to participate in military or combat operations, are punishable by two to three years’ imprisonment (Art. 332.2.1 of the Russian Criminal Code).

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