Kremlin-linked Wagner Group has reportedly been recruiting Ukrainian prisoners for Donbas war
The Kyiv Independent reported on Wednesday (01.25.2023), that Kremlin-linked Wagner private military company, founded by Russian oligarch and Vladimir Putin’s trusted man Yevgeny Prigozhin, is actively recruiting imprisoned Ukrainian citizens who were transferred to Russian prisons – often for more serious crimes – in order to deploy them to the eastern part of Ukraine, in Donbas.
The Ukrainian General Staff also revealed that the Wagner group has been running such activities over recent weeks in order to support the movement of the Russian Army in Donbas.
The Russian prisoners’ rights organization Rus Sidiaschaya (RS) estimates that around 40,000 inmates recruited by the mercenary company have been killed, deserted, wounded or captured as prisoners in Ukraine.
The prisoners – whom Wagner has been recruiting for months, according to Ukrainian intelligence reports – often form the first wave of an attack, resulting in them suffering the highest casualties, up to 80 percent of them.
Russia has yet to comment on this matter.
