Wagner Group exposed recruiting Russian prisoners for Ukraine

The Wagner Group thrives in the shadows, but now its founder has been caught on camera: recruiting prisoners from a Russian penal colony for the war in Ukraine.

In the video, Yevgeniy Prigozhin paces about a large group of prisoners, giving them the hard sell on joining the Russian war effort. He offers them a deal: six months of service in return for a pardon for their crimes. But, should they arrive in Ukraine and refuse to fight, they will be considered deserters and shot. ‘The war is difficult,’ he says; the pro-Kremlin group has used ‘more than two and a half times’ the amount of ammunition used by Soviet forces during the battle of Stalingrad in the second world war.

PMC Wagner Group Evgeny Prigozhin is at a penal colony looking for new assault infantry to join his company. Refers to some of those who served 30 years in prison and died in battle as "heroes". pic.twitter.com/Gp3IOVHuAq

— Dmitri (@wartranslated) September 14, 2022

Prigozhin, 61, goes on to set out the rules prospective recruits will be bound by if they join up, providing an eye-opening insight into how the group operates. There are, apparently, three cardinal sins recruits can commit. Firstly, deserting. ‘No one falls back, no one retreats, no one surrenders’. Prigozhin explains that basic training will cover what to do with the two grenades each soldier is given in case they are captured – the insinuation being that soldiers should blow themselves up rather than allow themselves to be taken prisoner.

The second cardinal sin, Prigozhin says, is touching drugs or alcohol while serving. Prisoners would be bound to a six-month tour of service with the Wagner Group, and would be expected to avoid these substances throughout.

Thirdly, recruits are forbidden from ‘marauding’, including looting and any form of sexual relations. Prigozhin is thorough: ‘This includes sexual contact with local women, flora, fauna, men…with anyone.’

According to the video, the Wagner Group is looking for recruits aged 22 to 50; anyone younger would need permission from relatives to join up, while anyone older would be accepted on a case by case basis: ‘Good physical shape is essential.’ Prisoners serving sentences for drug or sexual offences will be screened carefully but ‘we understand that mistakes happen’.

Prigozhin doesn’t sugarcoat the risk that the prisoners might not make it through the war alive. Describing one prison recruit who was killed on the front line, Prigozhin says he ‘died like a hero’. 

The leaked video offers proof that, despite refusal by the Russian government to acknowledge their existence, the Wagner Group has been involved in the war in Ukraine for at least several months. At the beginning of the summer, reports began to surface of prisoners being recruited as canon-fodder for the rapidly depleting Russian forces. Again, this video offers proof that this is the case – apparently the first prison recruits joined the group at the start of June from a penal colony near St Petersburg.

Responding to criticism clearly generated by the leaked video in Russia earlier today, Prigozhin was unrepentant: 'Those who do not want prisoners to fight in the Wagner Group, send your children to the Front. Either you have the Wagner Group and prisoners, or your children – it's up to you.'

It’s unknown how many of the prisoners in the video enlisted into the Wagner Group. Nevertheless, if the Russian army continues to flounder in Ukraine, recruitment drives such as these might become more frequent as Putin tries to turn the course of the war around.