Russia offers freedom to prisoners if they fight in Ukraine war

• There is growing evidence that the Kremlin is recruiting Russia’s prisoners to fight in its ugly war.
• Activists believe hundreds, including murderers and drug offenders, have been approached.
• Some have even been taken from the prison where prominent American Paul Whelan is being held.

In cramped prison cells, prisoners are offered freedom and wealth. Relatives and inmates who are considering the offer place frantic phone calls. The prisoners then vanish, leaving their family members to sift through reports of the injured arriving at hospitals.

This scene is occurring in prison communities throughout Russia. With a depleted regular army after nearly six months of a disastrously executed and bloody invasion of Ukraine, there is growing evidence that the Kremlin is recruiting Russia’s prisoners to fight in its ugly war.

During a month-long investigation, CNN spoke with prisoners involved in Russia’s most recent recruitment scheme, as well as their relatives and friends. Activists believe hundreds, including murderers and drug offenders, have been approached in dozens of prisons throughout Russia.

Some have even been taken from the prison where prominent American Paul Whelan is being held in Russia. In a July statement, his brother David said he had learned that ten volunteers had left IK17 in Mordovia for the frontlines in Ukraine.

CNN has reviewed dozens of chat messages between family members that describe the allure of fighting in Ukraine despite the high risk of death. The most recent Western estimates indicate that as many as 75,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded since the invasion began (a claim the Kremlin has denied).

One prisoner spoke to CNN from his cramped jail cell, where a cat crawled across bunk beds and a fan clamped to an ageing television attempted to cool the air between windows that were heavily barred.

He spoke on the condition of anonymity using a contraband smartphone, which is quite common in Russia’s prison system, to describe the terms on offer while serving multiple years for drug offences.

He stated, “They will accept murderers, but not rapists, pedophiles, extremists, or terrorists”,”Amnesty or a pardon in six months is on offer. Somebody talks about 100,000 rubles a month, another 200,000. Everything is different.”

According to him, the offer was made when unidentified men, believed to be from a private military contractor’s firm, visited the prison in the first half of July, and acceptance into the programme would result in two weeks of training in the Rostov region of southern Russia.

While he had two years of military service, he stated that recruiters did not appear to require military experience.
“In my case, if it’s real, then I’m all for it,” the prisoner said. “It can make a real difference for me: be imprisoned for nearly a decade, or get out in six months if you’re lucky. But that’s if you’re lucky. I just want to go home to the children as soon as possible. If this option is possible, then why not?”

The prisoner stated that 50 prisoners had already been selected for recruitment and quarantined within the prison, but he heard that 400 had applied. Since the beginning of July, rights activists working in the Russian prison system have been inundated with reports from relatives across Russia concerned about the fate of their inmates.

Vladimir Osechkin, the director of Gulagu.net, a prisoner advocacy organisation, stated “In the last three weeks [in July], there is a very big wave of this project to recruit thousands of Russian prisoners and send them to the war,”

Osechkin stated that some workers were promised a payout of five million rubles ($82,000) to their families in the event of their death, but it is possible that none of these promises will be honored.”There is no guarantee, there’s no real contract. It is illegal”, he said.

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