Wagner Group begins to recruit convicts in occupied territories

Ukrainska Pravda
·2 min read

Russian private military company Wagner Group has received permission to recruit convicts in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

Source: National Resistance Center (NRC)

Quote from NRC: "The so-called private military company Wagner has received permission to ‘recruit’ prisoners of Ukrainian prisons in the temporarily occupied territories.

In particular, we are talking about the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk Oblast. Local ‘Gauleiter’ (the so-called ‘DPR’ leadership) gave their consent to the start of recruitment by a special decision."

Details: It is noted that this way, Russians will start looking for "cannon fodder" in Ukrainian prisons.

The National Resistance Center also points out that Russia is planning a new wave of mobilisation and has already started creating a registry for monitoring conscripts.

Background:

  • On 13 November, it became known that a citizen of Russia was brutally executed without trial and investigation by tying his head to concrete with tape and hitting him with a sledgehammer from above. Prigozhin, the founder of Wagner Group, hinted that this was the work of his mercenaries. Perhaps, with the help of such a video of execution, Russia is trying to discourage the Russian conscripts from surrendering.

  • After the publication of the video of the execution with a sledgehammer of Yevgeny Nuzhin, a former inmate recruited by the Wagner Group, the recruitment of convicts in the colonies of Siberia and the Far East intensified: only in November, Wagner has "conscripted" people from at least six regions east of the Urals, taking 150-200 people from each penal colony.

  • On 22 November, Politico reported that the members of the European Parliament want to recognize the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization.

  • In response, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Chief of the Wagner Group, has proposed to give a sledgehammer with fake blood stains to the European Parliament in response to a possible recognition of his group as a terrorist organisation.

  • On 23 November, the European Parliament recognized Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and called for Wagner Group to be added to the list of terrorist organizations of the European Union.

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