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The Moscow-backed mercenary Wagner Group has reportedly been campaigning to recruit soldiers in Russian prisons since at least July.
Now the information has been updated again after videos of what appears to be the Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is believed to finance the Wagner group, have been spread on social media. In the clips, Prigozhin stands before a group of prisoners and emphasizes that he is looking for “warriors for assault troops”.
The prisoners are being offered shorter sentences and money to join, writes Britain’s Ministry of Defense in its latest intelligence analysis.
Russia is also said to be shortening military training and bringing up cadet graduation due to the increasingly severe shortage of manpower reported among Russian forces.
“This is almost certainly because cadets will be placed to work in the Ukraine operation,” writes the British Ministry of Defence.