Thousands of former prisoners who volunteered for the war in Ukraine are now returning to everyday life in Russia. “They have become real patriots of their country,” boasts Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Wagner’s Russian private army, who recruited the convicted criminals in the country’s prisons last year.
They were to serve for six months – and in return they were to be given their freedom. “More than 5,000 have fulfilled their contracts,” says Prigozhin. He does not name the number of those who did not survive the war. But he sees them all as heroes: the dead and the survivors.
The Kremlin in Moscow is not talking about the pardons by President Vladimir Putin necessary for such deployments of prisoners in the war zone. state secret! However, some of the Kremlin chief’s decrees on this are published by the families of those affected.
Heroes’ funerals for former criminals
Putin’s confidante Prigozhin, on the other hand, is aggressively dealing with the issue, which is not undisputed in Russia. Neither Prigozchin’s mercenary army nor the possibility for the Wagner boss to go in and out of Russia’s prisons has been legalized. But the warlord, who is currently focused on capturing the strategically important city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, has repeatedly pushed through concessions for his private army.
The fighters are now on an equal footing with the regular Russian armed forces in many respects. The 61-year-old Prigozhin also pushed through heroic funerals for former criminals killed in the war when local authorities refused to give them such a final respect. At times there is great resistance in the communities, particularly because the killings of some perpetrators have not been forgotten.
For Prigozhin, on the other hand, there is much to be said for his model of warfare, including with convicts. He claims that battlefield experience would discourage many offenders from committing new crimes.
“They value life, they want to love their country, they don’t want to go back to prison.” According to estimates, at times around 50,000 prisoners fought in the Wagner ranks.
Prigozhin scoffs at Russia’s elite
Prigozhin no longer recruits criminals. He runs recruitment centers around the country to recruit clean volunteers for the war. The fact that ex-offenders are not welcome says a lot about his country and the elite there: Russia’s bureaucrats would rather live in an ideal world. Ex-offenders also have no chance of becoming a full member of society because of the network of relationships and the “toady-licking” that is widespread in these circles, he says.
“The system doesn’t give them an opportunity to return to normal life,” he says of the pardoned convicts who fought in the war. They would have settled their debt to the country through the fight. Nevertheless, the elite see this kind of “heroism” as poison.
She doesn’t want convicted criminals in her ranks. And for the sake of history, the state wants to convince everyone that clean generals are fighting in Ukraine – “and not simple Russian guys, including some from prisons who have won victories in this war.”
A Prigozhin protégé murdered again after returning
Fear has long spread among parts of the population that those released from military service will commit new crimes. Women protest that bandits, rapists and murderers are set free. “They are now becoming war criminals,” says the feminist anti-war movement, for example. “Their pardon is a direct threat to the safety and lives of the women and their children.” The movement warns that the trauma of war increases the risk of violence.
Prigozhin also had to experience that one of his protégés, who had been convicted of murder, first smashed a car window with an ax after returning to his home region and then killed an 85-year-old woman in the neighboring town. The man had only served two of his 14 years in prison when the Wagner boss hired him for the war last year.
Wagner bears the responsibility for his fighters, Prigoshin admits. “We heal them, provide them with prostheses, pay everything we are supposed to pay.”
Rehabilitation in a posh suburb of Moscow?
Eva Merkatschova, who works on the Human Rights Council set up by Putin, believes that Russia needs a rehabilitation system because the “often already disturbed” criminals are now suffering from war trauma. A war medal does not help them to settle down in life, to find work. So far, Russia has not had a system to prepare criminals for a life in freedom.
Prigozhin also apparently sees a need for action in dealing with the traumatized returnees from the war. The businessman now wants to give up his own plot of land in the Moscow suburb of Barvich, popular with the rich, for the construction of a psychological rehabilitation center for war veterans, including former prisoners.
In addition, he asked the governor of the Moscow region, Andrey Vorobyov, in a letter with architectural drawings, to approve the construction of the “Rubka” center. He does not tolerate objections from authorities.
Yevgeny Prigoschin
