“New York Times”: Wagner Group mercenaries return to Russia, they may pose a threat

President’s decision Vladimir Putin allowing a private military firm to recruit Russian convicts to support the faltering war effort marks a watershed in his 23-year rule, the New York Times estimates. A total of about 40,000 prisoners joined Russian forces fighting Ukraine – results from Western intelligence and data from the Ukrainian government and collected by the Sitting Ruthenia organization, which defends the rights of prisoners in Russia. Ukraine claims that almost 30,000 of them deserted, were killed or wounded in combat, but this number could not be independently verified.

The American daily adds that “the return of some violent criminals to their homes with the decision of pardons threatens to unleash a wave of violence in society, underlining the price that Putin is willing to pay to avoid defeat.”

Coverage tvn24.pl: RUSSIA’S ATTACK ON UKRAINE

The newspaper gives the example of a 22-year-old from St. Petersburg, one of those who were released from a Russian prison and sent to fight in Ukraine with the promise of freedom, redemption and money. Andrei, according to his relatives, returned home changed. “We all feel as if he is in some kind of hypnosis, as if he is a different person,” a relative, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, told reporters. “He’s emotionless,” he added.

Most of the prisoners fighting in the Wagner Group were serving sentences for minor crimes such as theft, but according to data from one of the Russian penal colonies cited by the American daily, there were also people convicted of rape and multiple murders among them.

“Crimes and punishments no longer exist,” said Olga Romanowa, director of Sitting Rus. – Everything is allowed now. Something like this would have very far-reaching consequences for any country, he says.

Number of ex-prisoners returning from war in Ukraine to Russia is likely to increase with the end of six-month contracts, leaving Russian society to face the challenge of reintegrating thousands of traumatized, military-trained men with criminal histories and poor job prospects.

– These are mentally broken people who return with a sense of rightness, with the belief that they killed in defense of their homeland – Jana Gielmel, a Russian lawyer working for the rights of prisoners, referred to this situation. “They can be very dangerous.”

The prisoner recruitment campaign began in July 2022, when the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, began appearing in prisons in St. Petersburg with a proposal for convicts: they can repay their debt to society by joining its private army in Ukraine. Prigozhin promised the prisoners 100,000. rubles a month, or about $1,700 at the exchange rate of that time. He also offered “bravery bonuses”, a payment of 80,000. dollars to the recruits’ family in the event of their death, and if they survive the six-month contract, a pardon. Deserters, people abusing alcohol and drugs were threatened – according to Prigozhin – with death.

As a former prisoner himself, Prigozhin understood prison culture, skillfully combining the threat of punishment with the promise of a new, dignified life.

“Prigozhin’s prison visits immediately raised legal questions. Recruitment of mercenaries in Russia is illegal, and until last year Prigozhin denied the existence of the Wagner Group,” he adds. Officially – according to the information provided to the relatives of the recruits – the prisoners never went to war, but were only transferred to Russian prisons on the border with Ukraine.

To bolster the declining number of recruits, the Wagner Group recently began posting videos showing them returning home after their contract ends. In some videos, prisoners are seen receiving papers described as pardons or cancellations of convictions. However, none of these documents have been made public, raising doubts about their legality.

Under the Russian constitution, only the president can grant pardons, and the Kremlin has not published such decrees as of 2020. According to official information, in 2021 Putin pardoned only six people. Russian law stipulates that all petitions for clemency must be assessed by specialized regional committees before they reach Putin. Two members of such commissions, quoted anonymously by the daily, said that they had not seen such conclusions concerning the Wagnerians so far.

According to the American newspaper, a spokesman for the Kremlin Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Friday that convicts who joined the ranks of the Wagnerians are pardoned “in strict accordance with Russian law.” He declined to comment further, suggesting the procedure is a state secret. “There are overt decrees and decrees of varying degrees of secrecy,” he said.

Prisoners’ rights advocates say that the ambiguous legal status of returning prisoners undermines the authority of the Russian judiciary and makes the recruits’ fate dependent on the Wagner Group.