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TOPIC: prigozhin

FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Report: After Wagner Group, Now Russia's Official Military Is Recruiting Prisoners For War

Desperate to supply depleting forces in Ukraine, Russia's defense ministry has taken up the dubious recruiting method of offering prisoners freedom in exchange for going off to war. The same technique was begun but then halted in February by the Wagner Group mercenaries. It's Putin's latest attempt to avoid a nationwide mobilization.

Russia's notorious mercenary outfit, the Wagner Group, had shocked many last summer when it began recruiting soldiers from prisons to fight in Ukraine. After dubious results and high death counts among the ranks, that practice was halted in February. But now, sources say the Russian state military has started up its own prison recruitment campaign in a last-ditch effort to send more men to the front and delay a nationwide draft.

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With the personal approval of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Wagner had offered prisoners pardons and payment in exchange for six months of service. As many as 50,000 prisoners took the offer – and by early 2023, three out of four of them had been killed, the Ukrainian military estimates.

By February , Wagner called an end to the prison recruitment campaign. Some observers believe the effort ended because the Wagner group and its owner Yevgeny Prigozhin fell out of favor with Putin after failing to make much progress at the front.

But Putin hasn’t given up the idea of turning to prisoners to supply manpower to the frontline, even if untrained and unmotivated. According to Russian NGO Gulagu.net, which investigates corruption and torture in Russian prisons, the Russia's defense ministry is now recruiting directly from prisons – and their standards are reportedly even looser than Wagner’s.

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Inside Russia's "Game Of Thrones" To Succeed Putin

As Vladimir Putin's end increasingly seems near (political or physical), the battle to replace the Kremlin strongman heats up. Here are the main characters in this very Russian blood sport.

Today, Russia deservedly ranks among the most isolated and inhuman regimes in the world. And it's not just because of the war — this is the result of two decades of political and moral degradation of the Russian state.

The clans surrounding Vladimir Putin today resemble organized crime groups.

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Some of them command their own armies, like Wagner Group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin and the head of the Rosgvardia, Viktor Zolotov. Others, like Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Security Council, have security units.

And each clan has its financial resources — banks, state corporations and large companies. Some clans own entire regions, like Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya.

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Blood Of Bakhmut: Why Both Sides Are Ready To Die For A Deserted City In Donbas

Fighting has been fierce for the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. What is the price of a victory that is, above all, symbolic?

-Analysis-

PARIS — The name of Bakhmut will go down in history as one the fiercest, most contested battles in the Ukraine war. Fighting has been raging for weeks, in this city of the Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine's Donbas. The toll of victims is rising considerably.

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What’s at stake today is less strategic than symbolic — which is not a trifling thing in this type of conflict. There is something about Bakhmut that’s reminiscent of World War I, where men die to conquer a house or a neighborhood only to lose it again the next day. The weapons, of course, differ: 21st-century drones, geo-location, missiles.

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Makiikva, The Makings Of A Watershed In Ukraine War

The killing of likely hundreds of Russian troops has set of a spiral of recriminations that could change the way Moscow approaches its 10-month-old invasion of Ukraine

-Analysis-

PARIS — Since the start of the Ukraine invasion ten months ago, the Russian army has suffered its fair share of setbacks. But none, so far, had generated as strong a reaction as the Makiikva missile strike on Russian troops in occupied Ukraine, which undoubtedly claimed hundreds of lives. We may even ask ourselves if there won’t be a before and after Makiikva.

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The Russian general staff raised its official death toll Wednesday, from 63 to 89 dead, but Ukrainian and Russian sources have been citing between 300 and 400 victims. The building hit by Ukrainian missile fire was destroyed, probably because it also housed an weapons depot.

Vladimir Putin remained silent seeing what is being experienced in Russia as a tragedy. But even while being isolated in the Kremlin, he can’t avoid the strong emotion and virulent criticism circulating for the past 48 hours. The vitriol spares him directly, because the "Tsar" is still unassailable — but the demands are for clear accountability, and revenge.

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Russia
Yulya Krasnikova

The Prigozhin Method: Inside Wagner Group's Russian Prison Recruitment

An inmate of the penal colony in the town of Kopeysk reveals the different ways convicts are recruited in the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, whose founder and Putin confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin personally sought the most violent criminals with vows to pay big sums and expunge their sentences.

The Wagner Group, also known as Wagner PMC, is a private military force with close links to Vladimir Putin. Officially, they do not exist. Their presence in Ukraine made headlines and caused concern as UN investigators and rights groups have accused the group of targeting civilians and conducting mass executions.

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The group first emerged in 2014, reportedly financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman and associate of Putin. Videos emerged online of Prigozhin recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine in exchange for shortened sentences. Just last week a new video emerged of the execution of the Russian prisoner Evgeny Nuzhin who had joined Wagner and later surrendered to the Ukrainian army and testified against the Russians. The video in question shows Wagner recruits executing Nuzhin by smashing in his head with a sledgehammer.

Independent exiled Russian news outlet Vazhnyye Istorii was the first to report on the recruitment of convicts to the Wagner PMC in July from the St. Petersburg area, which has since expanded to penal colonies in the Ural, Siberia, the Far East, and even the Arctic Circle.

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