Putin personally pardons Russian prisoners recruited for war against Ukraine, Russian journalist says

Zakharov said his information came from the Federal Integrated Data Bank of the Russian Interior Ministry (IBD-F), which contains information about what crimes a person committed, when they were convicted, where they served their sentence, and when they were released.

Read also: Wagner intimidated recruited prisoners with execution videos, BBC reports

The journalist said he asked "a person who has access" to this database to check several convicts.

"The only legal way to release a rapist, a murderer or a thief who has been convicted firmly and for a long time is through a presidential pardon," the journalist wrote.

“But the authorities did not want to confirm this.”

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According to him, both prisoners in the IDF-F have the same mark: "released from further serving their sentence on the basis of a presidential decree on pardon." The date is July 6, 2022.

"Of course, it is not in the open registers: the nearest published decrees are dated July 5 and 8, and between them, judging by the numbers, there are five unpublished decrees," Zakharov writes.

According to him, the owner of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, when recruiting prisoners, promises them a pardon in six months, but the procedure is legally formalized before they are sent to the front line.

Read also: Russia now suffering biggest losses in Ukraine since invasion, military intelligence says

At the end of January, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that presidential decrees pardoning prisoners recruited to fight in the war against Ukraine were classified.

Earlier, CNN reported that prisoners for the war against Ukraine are now directly recruited by the Russian Defense Ministry.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine