Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner PPK, claims that the private military company has stopped recruiting Russian prisoners to participate in the war.
He said this while answering journalists’ questions. The words of this Russian war criminal are quoted by his press service.
The recruitment of prisoners in the Wagner PPK has been completely stopped. To those who work for us now, all obligations are fulfilled, Prigozhin said.
He did not give reasons why PIK refused to recruit prisoners.
PIK Wagner began recruiting prisoners to participate in the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the summer of 2022. According to estimates by the US and British authorities for December-January, PIK was able to recruit 40,000 prisoners.
Olga Romanova, chairman of the Sedentary Rus Foundation, said in January that the Wagner PPK could attract up to 50,000 prisoners. Romanova claimed that about 10 thousand people remained at the front, and the rest died, were injured, went missing, deserted or were captured.
In early February, Olga Romanova reported that Russian colonies continue to recruit prisoners to participate in the war, but the people who recruited said they represented the Russian Ministry of Defense, and not the Wagner Military Command.
Lawyers and human rights activists told the Agency in February that Russian prisoners were being forced to join the Wagner PIK, threatening them with new criminal cases.
Mediazona reported that at the end of 2022, employees of the Wagner PPK began for the second time to bypass the colonies in which prisoners had already been recruited, but this time there were several times fewer people who wanted to go to war.
Source: Racurs
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