Prisoners of war turned to Putin: they do not receive payments

Former prisoners who returned from the war in Ukraine, who were recruited into the “Storm Z” detachments of the Ministry of Defense, claim that they do not receive the payments required for participants in the war, as well as documents on the removal of criminal records. This is written by the edition “Vazhney istorii”, which received the text of the collective appeal of former prisoners to President Vladimir Putin. One of the applicants confirmed the authenticity of the document to the publication.

“We were promised a “white letter”: that is, full rehabilitation, that no criminal records will be marked. They did not give it to me, to anyone I know. I was in prison for 20 years, and I had three years left. Considering where we ended up and what tasks they performed, I can say, without guilt, that I would not have gone there purely for a pardon,” the former prisoner is quoted as saying in the publication. According to him, they concluded not full-fledged contracts with the Ministry of Defense, but some agreements on participation in volunteer formations – and not with the Russian military department, but with the so-called “DNR”. As a result, former prisoners do not receive payments due to military personnel, for example, for injuries. While the military is entitled to 3 million rubles per wound, “Storm Z” fighters can receive only from 50 to 300 thousand.

At the same time, the source of “Important Histories” claims that in the “Storm” detachments, which fight on the front lines and participate in assault operations, recently they have recorded not only prisoners, but also almost all volunteers.

Earlier on Thursday, an investigation by the Russian service of the BBC was published, in which it was stated that Russian prisoners who left to fight against Ukraine will now receive a conditional release instead of a pardon from President Vladimir Putin, and will instead serve six months until the end of the war.

According to data analyzed by the BBC together with Mediazona and a team of volunteers, as of January 23, more than eight thousand prisoners have died in the war against Ukraine. More than a thousand of them fought in the “Storm Z” or “Storm V” detachments.