Prigozhin: first group of mercenaries recruited in prisons has contracts finished, cleared of criminal record

The first group of Russian convicts earlier recruited by PMC Wagner as mercenaries for the Ukraine War has had its members’ six months contracts finished, RIA Novosti cites Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary group and a Russian oligarch.

Prigozhin says all members of the group have had their criminal record cleared.

“They have completed their contracts with dignity. They worked like few men do,” Prigozhin said.

The mercenaries, however, have said that they were “willing to come back and finish what they started because it’s no longer a job rather the entire life”.

“The society must treat them with utmost respect, and they should not go against the law. If you see an individual who was in prison and volunteered to join our group, you need to understand that this man is a proper member of the society,” Prigozhin said.

He also asked the mercenaries “not to drink much, to avoid drugs, and not to rape women”.

In September, a video, in which a man resembling the alleged head of PMC Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, recruits prisoners of a Russian penal colony for the war in Ukraine, appeared online. At the beginning of August, Mediazona reported, citing the convicts the outlet talked to, that Yevgeny Prigozhin had personally visited several penal colonies to recruit prisoners for the war. In August, the Verstka outlet reported that PMC Wagner had recruited over 1,000 convicts from 17 Russian colonies for the war in Ukraine.