Putin personally pardons Wagnerites so they can be sent to front

Russian President Vladimir Putin is issuing personal pardons to prisoners recruited by the Wagner Group so that they can then be sent to fight in the war against Ukraine.

Source: Novaya Gazeta [an independent Russian newspaper], citing a police database

Quote from Novaya Gazeta journalist: "I asked a person who has access to the federal-level Integrated Databank (IBD-F) (police database – ed.) to check out a couple of prisoners who appeared in a video with Prigozhin as an example of Wagner’s social elevator: in prison the day before yesterday; at the front yesterday; free today. One of them is a murderer, and the other, in pre-Revolutionary terms, a thief.

Both have the same note [next to their names] in the IBD-F: "Exempted from further serving their sentences on grounds provided in a presidential decree ‘On Clemency'."

Details: According to the journalist’s source, the decrees are dated 6 July 2022. The document is not publicly available. Novaya Gazeta says the closest ones by publication date are dated 5 and 8 July. Judging by the document numbers, there are five other unpublished decrees between them.

Novaya Gazeta reports that when recruiting prisoners, Prigozhin promises them a pardon six months in advance, but it is legally issued before they are sent to the front. 

Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president’s press secretary, said in late January that decrees pardoning prisoners who have been recruited to fight in Ukraine are classified. 

Earlier, Andrey Medvedev, a former Wagner Group commander who has fled to Norway, told the media that prisoners recruited by Prigozhin write their petitions for pardon before they are sent to the war.

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