The Real Reason Why Wagner Boss Prigozhin Stops Recruiting Prisoners Mystery About Another “Flying Object” After It Was Shot Down By The US Army

The Russian mercenary group Wagner no longer wants to recruit prisoners for the fight in the Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin announced this on social media on Thursday, shortly before the Russian army launched a new wave of attacks on various sectors of the front.

When asked by the American news channel CNN, the founder of Wagner boasted that he no longer needed criminals, but that he had received “applications from more than 10 million American citizens for the fight against NATO”.

The much more plausible and obvious reason for Prigozhin’s announcement is that hardly any Russian prisoners sign up for mercenary forces anyway, after rumors circulated in the penal camps about the massive losses suffered by the Wagner group in the battles for Bakhmut.

Last week, the British Ministry of Defense cited statistics from Russia’s prison administration FSIN in its daily report from military intelligence, according to which the number of prisoners released early from prison has plummeted since last November. This points to their diminishing willingness to let themselves be shot in Wagner’s suicide squads.

So far, so clear. However, another explanation for Wagner’s “prisoner indulgences” has now emerged; also one from a reliable source. Olga Romanova, founder of the human rights organization Russia Behind Bars, said in an interview Friday that the Russian General Staff had effectively banned Prigozhin from continuing to recruit in the detention camps. This is not because of a suddenly awakened humanity, but because of self-interest.

The Russian army is eager to help the prisoners’ resources themselves to supply their own ranks with new cannon fodder. Until a series of law changes last fall, the Russian military was prohibited from employing convicted criminals. According to Romanova, that has now changed and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu promptly takes the opportunity to oust his rival Prigozhin.

The return of the Russian penal battalions

It is reported that the prisoners recruited by the army will be deployed in penal battalions along with other undesirables. Traditionally, members of the military serve in such units who, for example, previously refused to fight or were guilty of other crimes.

Whether Russia actually re-established “schtrarafbats” as they are popularly called based on the German expression during the Ukraine War has not yet been confirmed, but it is likely. They were last used in World War II for suicide missions; always with the machine guns of their own Secret Service forces behind them, who were under orders to fire at their own “shtrafniks” in case of failure or desertion.

But why would Russian prisoners suddenly join the army if they disdained military service with Wagner? Romanova explains this with the slightly better conditions the army offers to prisoners. Unlike Wagner, one’s own soldiers may no longer be shot “without a court martial”.

In addition, the Ministry of Defense only recruits volunteers over the age of 21. With Wagner, parents could admit that they would also take under-21s. Above all is the prospect of being released from the often brutal prison system. All who survive a six-month deployment to the front – as in the case of the private mercenary army – beckon freedom and expungement of criminal records.

It remains to be seen whether the army will be more successful with its recruiting method than Prigozhin was for Wagner. In an interview with the TV channel Current Time TV, Romanova reports that the regular army has already withdrawn fighters from at least two prison camps for deployment to the front.

But the Russian public’s displeasure at having to greet returning ex-convicts who survived the six-month war effort will certainly remain as great. In an impressive report, the British ‘Guardian’ describes how convicted murderer Anatoly Salmin has been terrorizing his native village of Pikalevo since he returned from Ukraine a free man. (aargauerzeitung.ch)