Russia: prisoners of the battlefield

Dmitry Gurin. According to our information, the recruitment started almost immediately after the beginning of the Russian full-scale military invasion in Ukraine, in February 2022. It started as something sporadic and conducted “below the radar”. The recruitment movement then spread like an avalanche, expanding to almost the entire Russian penitentiary, as well as to prisons in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

The scenario is always the same: the recruiters visit a prison facility, sometimes accompanied by senior officers of the penitentiary service. Prisoners are gathered for a presentation of Wagner Group’s activities and the conditions of “service”. Those who wish to volunteer undergo simple physical tests and are briefly interviewed to determine their “loyalty” and “stability”. Volunteers are promised a monthly salary of about 200,000 roubles (around EUR 2,500) and release after six months of service. In case of death, their relatives receive compensation. At first, recruiters were selective: they tried to contract only prisoners with military or law-enforcement experience. Then they turned to those convicted of violent offences. Finally they opened the doors to everyone. The majority are recidivists, which is not surprising given that about 70% of the Russian prison population is composed of repeat offenders. Most of them willingly join the Wagner Group. This averages 20% or 30% of the prisoners of each correctional colony visited by the recruiters.

Several reports indicate that prisoners who had changed their mind and decided not to enrol had been forcibly recruited and pressured. They were threatened with ─ or actually placed ─ in disciplinary wards. They were told that additional charges would be fabricated against them. In some colonies the prisoners were “persistently recommended” to join the Wagner Group ─ this was the case for instance with some of the Ukrainian prisoners who were illegally transferred by Russian forces from Kherson in November and December last year. These cases are however rather exceptional. During the recruiters’ visits and the subsequent transfer of prisoners, communication channels with the facilities (phone calls, visits) are disrupted. No one is allowed to visit the “volunteers”.

The recruitment campaign in Russian prisons was carried out in several waves. The first active phase targeted correctional facilities in Central Russia and took place between June and September 2022. The second phase, more “productive”, focused on the Ural and the Far East and lasted from September to December 2022. At the beginning of January 2023, the Wagner Group started visiting correctional colonies in the Chechen Republic. This set the stage for the third wave of the recruitment campaign.

The Russian authorities, including the penitentiary service, the Ministry of Defence, and the General Prosecutor Office refuse to comment officially on the recruitment campaign. Their silence and occasional hints indicate an implicit tolerance. No criminal investigation has been opened despite numerous complaints. The Chair of the Lower House of Parliament, for example, and a number of MPs openly support the recruitment, claiming that the prisoners are heroes and that all voices criticising them shall be prosecuted. Some of the recruited prisoners have received medals, including from the President himself or have been buried with military honours. Memorial plaques have been erected to commemorate them. Several members of the President’s Human Rights Council tried to get answers from the State bodies, but without success. They were moreover prohibited from raising this issue during their meetings with the President. These members were finally removed from the Council last December. The only public acknowledgment of the recruitment came from a regional ombudsman.

On 9 February, Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder and owner of the Wagner Group, announced that they had “fully stopped” their recruitment campaign. This is consistent with what our partners in Russia, in particular the NGO Russia Behind Bars, are currently witnessing in the country’s correctional colonies. It appears however that over the last two weeks prisoners have been reportedly recruited by the Russian Ministry of Defence, allegedly on the same terms as those offered by Wagner.

DG. The recruited prisoners are transferred to the Wagner Group training camps in the Rostov region or in the occupied Luhansk region of Ukraine. After two or three weeks of training, they are then sent to the frontline. They seem to be used as cannon fodder by the Wagner Group mostly in the battles near Bakhmut. From the scarce information available, it seems that the combatants are organised in mixed formations, comprising both prisoners and “ordinary mercenaries”. Those who try to escape or surrender are allegedly executed, sometimes publicly. This is what happened to Yevgeny Nuzhin who was executed with a sledgehammer. A video of his execution was publicly released. According to some prisoners, this video and similar ones were shown by recruiters during their visits to the correctional colonies.

There was no reaction to these actions from the law enforcement: the Kremlin spokesperson simply said that the video was fake and that it did not concern them. Some MPs have even exploited the incident in their communication, posing for photos with sledgehammers to express support for Wagner and defiance against the West.

In January 2023, the Wagner media group published several videos of prisoners who had allegedly been released after six months of service and pardoned by Presidential decree. There are reportedly four groups so far with several dozens of prisoners each. One member of the President’s Human Rights Council suggested that the decrees were confidential. The Kremlin, again, refused to comment. Other documents released by one of the prisoners suggest that this is more of a “leave” from service rather than a “release”.

DG. We have almost no legal means to oppose the recruitment campaign, as it is supported by the national authorities. The problem is multifaceted: it concerns the right to the proper execution of criminal judgments, the right of prisoners to be protected, and the right to rehabilitation and resocialisation. The Russian authorities are clearly neglecting their obligations in these areas. This situation also crucially undermines the safety, security, and human dignity of the victims of the crimes for which the recruited ─ and in some cases, released ─ prisoners were imprisoned. In some cases, the recruited prisoners have stopped paying damages to the victims. Their lawyers then try to obtain court orders for the perpetrators to return to prison.

At EPLN, along with our partners, we are trying as far as possible to document the entire chronology of the recruitment campaign, to provide a legal analysis of it, and to bring it to the attention of the United Nations bodies. We do not expect any immediate resolution in the short term, but we believe that this work is crucial for the successful implementation of accountability and compensatory mechanisms at the national and international levels in future.