Inmates describe visits by Yevgeny Prigozhin, reported head of the Wagner group, who is said to offer pardons for those who enlist. Her group has now focused its attention on helping families dissuade prisoners from signing up. But using infantry to storm trenches, redolent of World War I, brings high casualties. "You've worked through your contract. The shelling stopped, he went back, and the higher-up shouted to him: 'Why didn't you go forward?' His cousin Rehema Makrene Kigoga told CNN: "Since his childhood, Nemes was a very obedient boy. A warden kept watch this month over prisoners of war at a camp in western Ukraine. The oldest prisoner was a 70-year-old man, who had been taken captive after he admitted to having military identification, he said. A different video of the scene, filmed from a different angle, appeared on the Telegram channel of UNIAN, a Ukrainian news agency, on March 30. The Guardian spoke to four prisoners and three close family members of inmates across different penal colonies in Russia who all gave similar accounts of how Prigozhin was personally conducting recruitment in prisons. The prisoners are identified only by first name and rank for security reasons, because of the possibility of retribution once they are returned. The former convicts, Colonel Kostenko said, are herded into the battlefield by harsh discipline: They have orders, and they cannot disobey orders, especially in Wagner.. WebAt least 2,500 Ukrainians who remained in prison in the occupied territories of Ukraine were taken to Russia. He was convicted in March last year to seven years in jail, according to the Tanzanian foreign ministry, citing information from their Russian counterparts. The other problem is that the inmates are under control of the other state, but de jure continue serving their sentence. The man was shown telling inmates at another prison 500 miles north of Tambov that they would be freed if they served six months with his group, the first time the enlistment process had been captured on camera. When Anastasia, who asked that her last name not be used, tried to find the whereabouts of her enlisted relative at his prison, she said the guards merely told her that he was unavailable. "Everything is completely destroyed. Everyone hates this Russian Federation, because we all know that were nobodies there, he said, speaking by telephone from his hometown in central Ukraine. The releases are likely to accelerate as Wagners six-month service contracts expire, potentially confronting Russian society with the challenge of reintegrating thousands of traumatized men with military training, a history of crime and few job prospects. From Olga Voitovych. Rob Lee, a military analyst, said Moscows latest recruitment push might plug some holes in the short term but would do little to address Russias critical shortage of manpower.
(CNN)The audio is garbled at times, but the emotions are unmistakable. But Wagner recruiters came and went, without accepting even the few Ukrainians who had volunteered. Any questions, guys?" Help me, please! the private said, though no help arrived. The arrangement, he said, was not offered to rapists and drug addicts, but murderers, burglars and other prisoners were welcome. [Wagner recruits have also complained of being used as cannon fodder and poorly treated.] Five of them were seriously wounded,
Some come here, hear the machine gun, and run. First published on January 12, 2023 / 8:09 AM. A poster showing a member of the Russian military near the headquarters of the Wagner private military company in St. Petersburg, Russia. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
He said they were threatened with summary executions, and at least one man in his unit was taken away after disobeying orders and never returned. Russian forces have been pushing hard to take the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region and have managed to make some advances in recent days into the nearby town of Soledar, according to assessments from the US military and British Defense Ministry. 
We are prisoners, even if former prisoners, he said. He went because he was ashamed in front of his mother, he wanted to clear his name.. It was the first verdict in a trial of a Russian prisoner of war in Ukraine. Yet the operation remains largely cloaked in secrecy and propaganda. Though they are prisoners of war overseen by Ukrainians, the Russians said they spoke freely. Russia has accused Ukrainian forces of executing a group of Russian prisoners, an action it has described as a war crime. The inmates of penal colony No 8, in the Tambov region 300 miles south of Moscow, rushed to their cell windows when they heard the sound of a helicopter approaching on a late afternoon in July. The sequential assaults on Ukrainian lines by small units of former Russian prisoners have become a signature Russian tactic in the effort to capture Bakhmut. Latvias Border Guard and Interior Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Wagner fighters have been at the forefront of Moscow's offensive in Ukraine. But according to our reports, there are definitely at least 2,500 Ukrainians citizens who were imprisoned on the now occupied territories of Ukraine who were then taken to the territory of Russia.". From there, some are returned to Russia in prisoner exchanges. The New York Times interviewed the Russians at a detention center near Lviv in Ukraines west, where many captured enemy soldiers are sent. He said: What could such an army even accomplish in combat?. The soldiers were sitting ducks, sent forth by Russian commanders to act essentially as human cannon fodder in an assault. Yes, they have heavy losses. Hundreds of Russian soldiers are reportedly refusing to fight and trying to quit. Ms. Fedosik with Mr. Korin, Mr. Osadchiy and another former Kherson prisoner outside a notary office in Tbilisi in February. Anatoly Korin, who served time in Kherson for theft, said: I am living my seventh decade. The soldiers arrived at the front straight from Russias penal colony system, which is rife with abuse and where obedience to harsh codes of conduct in a violent setting is enforced by prison gangs and guards alike. So that we can be reunited again, Irina said. 
Whats their motivation for telling us? He was captured on his first human wave assault. In three days at the front south of Bakhmut, Private Sergei first served as a stretcher bearer, carrying out mangled, bloody former prisoners who had been killed or wounded in an omen of what awaited him when ordered to join an assault. Despite Prigozhins previous denials of any links to Wagner, a spokesperson for his company Concord said when asked about the recruitment video that the man in the footage looked and spoke like Mr Prigozhin. Women POWs told interviewers that they were not subjected to physical violence but described being psychologically tormented by the screams of male POWs being tortured in nearby cells. WebMarch 5, 2022. U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink, left, listens to Ukraine's Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktov during a tour of Borodyanka, Ukraine, on June 4. And still they shot at us from both sides. LVIV, Ukraine Creeping forward along a tree line late at night toward an entrenched Ukrainian position, the Russian soldier watched in horror as his comrades were mowed down by enemy fire. I needed your criminal talents to kill the enemy in the war, Mr. Prigozhin said in one video. I liked everything over there. She also said that accountability is key to deterring and preventing further violations, adding that the parties to the conflict have clear legal obligations to investigate and prosecute all allegations of violations of international humanitarian law in relation to the treatment of prisoners of war within their control. An inmate at prison colony No 2, in Russias isolated northern Komi region, described a similar visit by Prigozhin in mid-July. Natalia Yermak contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Alina Lobzina from London. WebRussia has accused Ukrainian forces of executing a group of Russian prisoners, an action it has described as a war crime. First, the prisoners were left largely to their own devices in their Ukrainian jails. In one instance, according to The Beast's translation, Novikov said: "Shelling began, one of the prisoners laid down and didn't cover his own [men]. I lost a lot of people there. The scheme to send convicts to the war appears to have grown fast, with figures obtained by CNN from Russia's penal system showing a 27,000 drop in the prison population between March and November last year, when the scheme was just three months old. Ivan declined the job offer but he said roughly 120 inmates signed up and were now fighting in Ukraine after a one-week training course. Nine people are said to have died during such attacks in April this year. When his training camp came under a surprise Ukrainian attack, Mr. Matyukhin seized the opportunity to escape in the confusion. Armies are effective when there is clear hierarchy and cohesion, Lee added. Sergei, sat, shoulders slumped, on the sofa in the wardens office of the Ukrainian detention center. Another had fallen silent too, but was sending his brother his salary, collected monthly from a rented office in a sealed plastic bag. Dozens of survivors from the first inmate assault units began filtering back to Russia this month with medals, sizable payouts and documents that Wagner claims grant them freedom. Someone off camera says, Slava Ukrayini! glory to Ukraine, a patriotic greeting, and a bearded man steps in the frame and replies, Glory the heroes, the standard reply. ", The fate of convicts employed by Wagner appears no better, according to relatives of three convicts over the summer who appeared in. The process is The Kremlins reliance on unorthodox methods to keep the fighting going in Ukraine is worrying for Russia, according to Lee. Besides, right now, signing up is voluntary. These are psychologically broken people who are returning with a sense of righteousness, a belief that they have killed to defend the Motherland, said Yana Gelmel, a Russian prisoner rights lawyer who works with enlisted inmates. When I came to this war, I thought it was worth it, he said. At first, Kherson prisoners thought they would be pressed into the convict battalions that Russias Wagner mercenary group had formed. These can be very dangerous people.. Anatoly Kurmanaev and Ekaterina Bodyagina reported from Berlin, and Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia. But with these heavy losses, they sometimes advance..
Andrei Medvedev showing his Wagner dog tag in November. In at least one Kherson prison, inmates said the retreating Ukrainian officials pillaged food supplies, leaving them to their fate under the guard of the few officers who remained at their posts. Yury Butusov, a Ukrainian journalist, published an interview last week with a Russian prisoner recruited to fight in Ukraine and captured by Kyiv who said he had used the opportunity given by Prigozhin to hand himself over to Ukraine. "And thousands of their people were lost: The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes. We couldnt believe our eyes, he would really come all the way to visit us, said Ivan, who is halfway through a 23-year sentence for murder and, like other inmates interviewed, asked to use a pseudonym out of concerns for his safety. Follow us! A senior US military official told reporters Monday that prisoners and other recently mobilized troops were being used by Russia to "take the brunt" of Ukrainian fire on the front lines to clear a path for "better-trained forces" amid heavy fighting in Ukraine's east. What do you want to do with it?. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source. Keeping detainees in good health for prisoner "When he was alive, we never heard about this report but now that he's died we are told he was arrested for drug-related offenses. Some rejected them out of patriotism; others feared retribution from the government in Kyiv. Inmates said Prigozhin appeared comfortable inside the walls of Russias notorious prisons. The Russians behavior befuddled the convicts from the start, with no one, including apparently their new jailers, having much of an idea what to do with them.
"There are open decrees and there are decrees with various classifications of secrecy," he said. An additional 150,000 are in training camps, officials said, meaning there is the potential for half a million soldiers to join the offensive. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Former convicts from Russia have become an integral part of Russias military strategy as itfights for Bakhmut, Ukraine. They were Since the start of the summer, reports have emerged that Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin and the reported head of the Wagner group an allegation he has repeatedly denied was recruiting soldiers from within Russias extensive penitentiary system in an attempt to compensate for the countrys acute personnel shortages on the battlefield in Ukraine. He began recruiting prisoners for Wagner around the city, his hometown, last summer. Some were beaten unconscious, he said. We are nobody and have no rights.. His grave is located outside Moscow, and records his month of death as November 2022. It didnt have any logic, said Mr. Osadchyi, 44, who served 12 years for homicide. There, they have enabled Russian lines to move forward slowly, cutting key resupply roads for the Ukrainian Army. WebA Russian prison monitor said Gershkovich is reading "Life and Fate" by Vasily Grossman, a Ukrainian Jew and war correspondent who reported from the front lines during World WebCNN has geolocated a recent video that appears to show the execution of a Russian prisoner by Ukrainian forces following recent fighting in the Kyiv region. I wish Prigozhin never came.. They are covering more ground every day.. What we consider before using anonymous sources. The remains of a bombed out bedroom in Borodianka, Kyiv. 2023 Cable News Network. There is almost no life left," Zelenskyy said of the situation in Soledar. 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