The Russian prisons being emptied as Putin scrambles for convict fighters

Over 500 days since Vladimir Putin ‘s ‘special operation’ to take control of Ukraine began, the severe depletion of his forces has led to increasingly desperate moves. Up to 180,000 of the Kremlin’s soldiers are believed to have been injured, according to leaked US military intelligence , and up to 43,000 killed. Last year, the mercenary Wagner Group, one of the most effective attachments involved in the invasion at the time, was given the power to offer Russian convicts a pardon in exchange for joining their ranks. Its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has claimed 50,000 did so. Now, following the company’s defused rebellion and withdrawal from Ukraine , Putin is said to be ‘planning to empty Russian prisons’ by forcing inmates to fight for the Russian military itself. The ranks of the regular Russian military are soon to be replenished by convict recruits (Image: GETTY) Russia ‘s Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) had long published monthly data on the number of prisoners it held. Then, in January, it stopped. In the context of a steady decline over a number of years, the FSIN declared 33,000 fewer prisoners in the system at the start of 2023 relative to a year earlier. According to Mediazona , a Russian news website operating in exile, there had been a sudden 6.5 percent drop in the male prison population since August – when Wagner first started onboarding convicts. By analysing regional prison archives, they were able to trace where just over 17,000 of these mobilised men came from.  According to Prigozhin, a total of 32,000 convicts had reached the term of their contracts within Wagner’s penal battalions and returned to Russia as free men as of June 18. On June 21, the State Duma approved legislation that would enable a similar fight-for-freedom bargain for prisoners joining the regular Russian military. Murderers, rapists and torturers will be donning official fatigues for the first time. According to prisoners’ rights campaigners Gulagu.net , a sweeping deployment of inmates is imminent. Unlike the Wagner recruitment drive, however, the Kremlin’s iteration will reportedly be mandatory. With over 400,000 people still detained within the FSIN, the organisation claims Putin is ‘planning to empty Russian prisons’. Prison camps in the regions of Novosibirsk, Saratov, Lipetsk, Voronezh, Rostov, Tomsk and Nizhny Novgorod have reportedly been chosen for the upcoming recruitment campaign. Over a thousand detainees are sent to the frontlines each day, Gulagu.net claims. Convicts are being used to bolster numbers in Moscow’s ‘Storm Z’ assault units, as well as a new ‘North Z’ attack and reconnaissance team.