Navalny says Prigozhin came to prison where he stays to recruit inmates
Alexey Navalny, the Russian opposition figure and political prisoner of the Kremlin, has reported that Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, the infamous Russian private military company, came to his correctional facility in order to recruit inmates.
Source: Navalny on Instagram
Quote: "Turns out Prigozhin came to my correctional facility in order to recruit inmates into his combat units. A witness reported the following: "He (Prigozhin – ed.) arrived on a helicopter, all inmates and the administration gathered at the stadium. Prigozhin is short and bald. He said: "I did time of 10 years myself. Now I suggest that you become my militants. In half a year, I will issue amnesty for each of you. You have five minutes to think."
Details: Navalny states that Prigozhin managed to recruit nearly 80-90 people during this visit.
He added that later, the second recruitment wave followed.
Navalny did not specify when the visit took place.
Note: The Russian media report that Navalny is serving his sentence in the IK-6 maximum security prison in the settlement of Melehovo, Vladimir Oblast.
Read also: Captured Wagner militant tells Ukrainska Pravda about recruitment and fighting in Ukraine
Background:
- On 4 July, Vazhnie Istorii, an independent Russian media outlet, reported that inmates in the correctional facilities of St. Petersburg were being recruited as "volunteers" to participate in the war against Ukraine, as part of the Wagner Group.
- On 20 July, Vazhnie Istorii reported that the Wagner Group had been recruiting Russian inmates in more than ten correctional facilities throughout Russia.
- Later, it was revealed that almost all inmates recruited by the Wagner Group died in the war in Ukraine.
- On 14 September, a video of Prigozhin personally calling upon the Russian inmates to fight in Ukraine was published on social media.
- Later, the recruitment campaign in the correctional facilities in Siberia and Far East intensified – reportedly, only in November the Wagner Group mobilised inmates from at least six regions in the Urals: 150-200 people from each facility were recruited for the war in Ukraine.
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