After six months spent on the Ukrainian front, the former prisoners recruited by the paramilitary group Wagner can return home, free. The first contracts expired at the beginning of the year. The return of these men, convicted of serious crimes and pardoned, is not without posing serious challenges to Russian society.
These returns to freedom of people who should have been serving their sentences for many more years, arouse concern among the local population, but also misunderstanding in certain villages, where the relatives and friends of the victims of these criminals must meet these men again.
Last month, one of these former detainees, sentenced to ten years in prison for murder, returned to his village in the Kirov region, after spending six months at the front in the Donbass. Intoxicated, armed with a pitchfork, an ax and a knife, he began threatening to kill everyone. Faced with the excitement aroused by his return and the fear expressed by the inhabitants who no longer dared to leave their homes, the authorities assured that the man would leave quickly to join the paramilitary group in eastern Ukraine. . But, a few days later, he was arrested, suspected of having committed a new murder.
” I am a national hero »
” Cases like this are legion “, says rights defender Yana Gelmel, who knows the Russian prison world well and who, even if she had to leave Russia for security reasons, has kept many contacts there. But in a country where anyone can find themselves sentenced to a long prison term for “ discredit of the army publications on these subjects are rare. The boss of the paramilitary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, went himself recruit men from Russian prisons from the summer of 2022. Thousands of prisoners, some of whom have been sentenced to heavy sentences for murder, rape, robbery, have signed a contract and left to fight in eastern Ukraine.
After six months spent on the front, those who survived can return home. ” They are dangerous people “Warns Yana Gelmel. ” When they were in prison, they suffered torture there, then they went to war and they suffered psychological trauma there, they killed. Their mental state is seriously disturbed. They suffer from megalomania. They say : “I protected you, I am a national hero, I defended the fatherland“ “.
British intelligence warns that this poses a considerable risk to Russian society. It is difficult to say how many men returned from the front. Wagner is estimated to have recruited 45-50,000 inmates from the prisons. The NGO Russia behind bars estimated in January that only 10,000 were still able to fight, the others having been killed, wounded or missing. The British secret service has another estimate: according to them, only half of the recruits in Russian prisons were killed or injured. Whatever happens, thousands of people should, in principle, return to Russia in the weeks or months to come.
” Inmates no longer want to enlist »
Against the backdrop of tensions with the Minister of Defence, Evguéni Prigojine has repeatedly complained that he can no longer recruit in Russian prisons. But if the boss of Wagner no longer has access to the penal colonies, recruitment continues under the leadership, this time, of the Ministry of Defence. The latter passed amendments allowing the recruitment of convicts with a criminal record in the army, something impossible before, according to the NGO Russia behind bars. However, Yana Gelmel believes that these recruitments are more tedious: “ Inmates no longer want to enlist. They are aware of what is happening on the front. They know very although they are considered cannon fodder. »
► To listen also: Russia: new recruitment method for the Wagner group
According to information from the defender of prisoners’ rights, the staff and management of prison establishments do not see favorably the sending of detainees to the front. ” In some prisons, the prison guards, the administrative staff, have begun to dissuade prisoners from enlisting, because they see that the number of prisoners is decreasing significantly and they fear that the posts in their establishments will be also scaled down. »
With the announcement of a Ukrainian counter-offensive expected for the coming weeks, the Russian army may however need new reinforcements. On Tuesday, April 11, Duma deputies voted a law that facilitates enlistment, by allowing mobilization orders to be sent electronically. According to Russian media, mobilization orders will be sent through the Gosouslougy system, used by millions of Russians for a whole series of administrative procedures. Once the order has been sent, the mobilized person is prohibited from leaving the country.
Prisoners sent to work in factories
At the same time, recruitment attempts in prisons continue, according to Yana Gelmel, who recently received information from prisoners in the Urals. They told him that they had been visited by officials, who reviewed the files of those who could benefit from sentence adjustments: “ All those who can claim an adjustment of sentence against work of general interest have been called to send their request to the court. They were told that the government had given the order to send the prisoners to work in the factories. »
According to the lawyer, it may be arms factories, the most important of which are located in the Urals. But if prisoners benefit from this adjustment of sentence, they have little chance of escaping ” special military operation “, the day when the authorities will decide that they will be more useful on the front than in the factory. According to Yana Gelmel, “ it will be very easy, at the slightest deviation, to threaten them by saying: either you go to war or you go back to prison. »
► Read also : Russian paramilitary group Wagner has an ‘Africa desk’ for its influence on the continent