Prisoners from PMC Wagner, who went to the war in Ukraine to avoid torture in prison, face torture at the front as well: the command cuts off prisoners’ fingers and hides signs of torture by burning bodies in crematoria, and also threatens to show them a video of a living person skinned for shooting the commander. This was reported to The Insider by the founder of the Gulagu.net project Vladimir Osechkin, citing a verified source. The publication got acquainted with the materials at the disposal of the project.
One of the prisoners, who confirmed his data, said that he signed an agreement with PMCs, like many, in order to avoid torture in prison. In the three-page contract, among other things, it was required to indicate the data of relatives: full name, address of residence of the father and mother. The document also stated that the body of a prisoner had the right not to be extradited, but to be cremated. The interlocutor himself believes that this is how they “cover their tracks” so that the Investigative Committee could not figure it out if the prisoners were tortured. For attempts to escape, prisoners are shot, and for squabbling with the command, fingers are cut off. The commanders say that if the fugitives are not caught, pressure will be exerted on relatives.
“If you run, we will catch, we will torture, you will die for a very long time, if we do not catch, everything will be reflected in your relatives.”
Every second prisoner wants to escape from the unit, but everyone is intimidated, as every day the commanders cut off the fingers of convicts or take them to the torture chamber. As a warning against escape, the prisoners were told how one of the prisoners who shot the commander was tortured. They took off his skin and "specially kept him on droppers so that he would die in terrible agony for several days." Also, the prisoners were promised to be shown a video from the place where “the brains of the prisoners” who had disobeyed were “splattered”.
All prisoners hide their phones, as they can cut off their fingers for using them. Communication is used only when the commanders do not see, for example, in the trenches. At present, prisoners from the Penza colonies have already been thrown to the front line, prisoners from the Volgograd region are being trained for battle, and Orenburg prisoners are undergoing express training, which actually consists of intimidation. At the same time, the convicts are not paid for the war, but are promised release.
Earlier, recidivist criminal Yevgeny Prigozhin, one of the founders of the Wagner PMC, answered the question of whether he was afraid to go to prison for mercenarism. According to Prigozhin, he is ready to go to prison along with the mercenaries if all the dissatisfied stand under the bullets instead of them.
In September, a video appeared on the network, in which Prigozhin recruited prisoners from IK-6 of Yoshkar-Ola to participate in the war against Ukraine. On the footage, he stands in front of a line of prisoners and tells them about the conditions of service; in this video, for the first time, he says in plain text that he owns the Wagner PMC. The convicts told The Insider even before the video appeared that Prigozhin personally recruited prisoners in Russian colonies, offering release in six months for participation in hostilities in Ukraine. According to the prisoners, Prigozhin does not hide the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally sanctioned their recruitment. The human rights activist, the head of the “Rus Sitting” Foundation, Olga Romanova, stated that a cannibal maniac would also go to war.
At the same time, the State Duma only on October 27 adopted in the third reading a law that allows the mobilization of citizens who have an unexpunged or outstanding conviction for committing some serious crimes. It was allowed to send murderers and rapists to the war in Ukraine, since the articles under which they are convicted are not on the list of exceptions. Both the video with Prigozhin and the stories from prisoners appeared before the adoption of the law, so prisoners were recruited illegally all this time. According to RBC, the bill implies a change in the paragraph of the law "On mobilization", according to which previously persons with an unexpunged or outstanding conviction for a serious crime could not be mobilized.
Prigozhin is a recidivist criminal convicted of theft, fraud and involvement of minors in criminal activities. His mercenaries are involved in many operations abroad, in many cases (as in the invasion of Ukraine) under the direct command of the GRU. He earned the nickname "Putin's chef" because he organizes Kremlin dinners. He also funds the Internet Research Agency, the largest troll factory in Russia.
