The Ministry of Defense recruited 110 people from the colony in St. Petersburg

Former prisoner Yury Yakovlev said that he and more than 100 convicts of St. Petersburg Colony No. 4 were recruited by recruits of the Russian Ministry of Prisons. The video with Yakovlev’s story was published by the “Syrena” publication.

According to Yakovlev, recruits of the Ministry of Defense took the prisoners from the colony on February 20, and already on February 21 they were in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. They were not given any documents, they were put in a basement and left without professional soldiers. Of the promised salary, only 40 thousand rubles were paid.

Yakovlev noted that in the six-month contract with the department “no conditions were written in principle”, and the document itself was drawn up on the principle of “just survive and that’s it.”

22 people from among the prisoners were formed into the assault group “Storm Z”, which fought near the village of Vodyane. At the same time, as Yakovlev claims, the author of the Telegram channel “Misha na Donbass” gave them weapons – a certain Moscow resident who went to the war in Ukraine as a volunteer. This same person, according to the former prisoner, sent the group on an assault, where many died.

“Syrena” clarifies that the video was recorded on April 7, it was sent to the editorial office by a subscriber of the publication who was sitting with Yakovlev. “Sirena” talked to the mother of the former prisoner, who confirmed her son’s words. He was last contacted on April 9.

Sibir.Realii reports with reference to the human rights activist Petro Kuryanov that representatives of the Ministry of Defense have begun to visit colonies in various Russian regions, including Siberia and the Far East, and recruit convicts for contract service in the Russian army. Thus, it became known that 400 prisoners were forcibly recruited and taken away from Angar colony No. 15, where a spontaneous protest action took place three years ago.

It became known in October 2022 that the Ministry of Defense began recruiting prisoners to be sent to war in Ukraine. Prior to this, PMC “Wagner” was mainly engaged in this.

• From the spring of 2022, information began to appear in the mass media that Wagner’s PMC was recruiting prisoners in Russian colonies to participate in the war with Ukraine in exchange for a pardon. It is still unknown how this is legally formalized. The Kremlin said that this information is classified.
• How many people were recruited for the war from Russian colonies is not reliably known. FSIN announced a reduction in the number of prisoners last year by almost 30,000 people. According to the United States, convicts make up a significant part of Prigozhin’s detachments, and 40 of the 50,000 mercenaries fighting in Ukraine are prisoners recruited from Russian colonies. The head of the “Sitting Russia” foundation, Olga Romanova, reported that by the end of 2022, 42-43 thousand people had been recruited from the colonies.
• By the beginning of February, “Mediazon” was able to confirm the death of 567 recruited prisoners – the real figures may be significantly higher.