Unable to find enough volunteers for his war, Vladimir Putin (70) six months ago gave the mercenary “Wagner” group this secret mission: train prison inmates and allow them to fight for their early freedom in Ukraine.
Now this strategy is paying off.
► Reason: More than 40,000 former monks have been returning to their homeland since the beginning of this year. They are ticking time bombs that are becoming a threat to Russian society.
Andriy Yastrepov is one of them. The 22-year-old was responsible for a harmless stolen car. What he experienced in Ukraine changed him more than prison.
Thousands of Naki mercenaries were sent like cannon fodder to the edges of the fiercest competition by the unscrupulous Wagner boss Jevejenij Prigošin (61) and fell in no time. Several hours after they arrived. Countless people have been affected by the horrors of war.
Yevegeny Prigozhin, 61, attended the funeral of Dmitri Menshikov, a Wagner mercenary fighter, at Belustrovskoye Cemetery outside St. Petersburg.
► “He is in a state of hypnosis,” an anonymous relative of Yastrebov told the American newspaper “New York Times”. “He has no emotions anymore.”
Andrei is a small problem. Because rapists and murderers are among the “gift” criminals now roaming freely in Russia. The war had a doping effect on her. They have money and medals for that.
The cemetery is growing rapidly Here lie dead Wagner mercenaries
Olga Ramanova (51), head of the activist organization “Post-Russia Bars”, explains how dangerous it is. “There is almost no crime and no punishment,” he says. “Suddenly everything is allowed.”
Human rights lawyer Yana Kelmel warns: “These are mentally broken people who come back with a sense of justice. They believe they were killed to defend their motherland.
A leaked video showing Wagner boss Prigogine recruiting in prison makes it clear what Putin did because he was determined to win the war. “I need your criminal skills to kill the enemy,” the mercenary boss encouraged the prisoners.
And to those who thought they might change their minds and go back to jail, he clearly said, “If you do, you will be branded as deserters and shot…”
But he promised those who struggle and survive a “death bonus” of 75,000 euros in addition to their monthly salary (twice the average Russian income).
Officially, the Kremlin wants nothing to do with it. On paper, the prison mercenaries were never released, but instead transferred to institutions near the Ukrainian border.
► Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov (55), meanwhile, told a press conference in Moscow last Friday about the pardons issued by the Kremlin boss: “There are orders with an open degree and there are orders with a secret amount …”
Meanwhile, Wagner boss Prigozhin continues to exploit some 350,000 male prison inmates in Russia.
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