IStories: Wagner Group still recruiting despite Prigozhin’s claims

The Wagner Group continues to recruit mercenaries across Russia despite the claims of its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, who said recently that the PMC has stopped its recruitment effort.

Independent investigative outlet IStories noticed messages in chats for Russian volunteer fighters claiming that Wagner plans to resume recruitment in August. One of its former soldiers, who fought in Africa and Ukraine, told journalists that recruitment has resumed through the Orthodox sports club Desantnik in Omsk and one of the PMC’s offices in Novosibirsk.

The Novosibirsk veterans’ organisation “Power Unity of Siberia”, which has become Wagner’s official representative in the city, told an IStories reporter posing as a volunteer that the new recruitment takes place on Fridays. Candidates must come to their office with sports clothing to pass a physical fitness test. Moreover, candidates must not have a criminal record, any debts, or chronic illnesses, and need to have a military profession and a foreign travel passport.

The Desantnik club, however, told the undercover IStories reporter that there was no way to join the PMC now because Wagner has been banned from recruiting in Russia.

IStories recount that, during Prigozhin’s mutiny in June, the head of the “Power Unity of Siberia” Valery Fyodorov said they were stopping the recruitment of mercenaries in Novosibirsk. Recruitment resumed almost immediately after Wagner retreated from the Moscow region.

One Wagner mercenary told IStories that the recruitment centres decide where the fighters are sent only after selection and that they can end up in Ukraine. Wagner recruiters, however, did not confirm reports that new recruits are being sent to the war in Ukraine.

Another PMC, however, did offer the IStories reporter an opportunity to fight in Ukraine without signing a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defence. A recruiter for Redut PMC, which is linked to Gazprom, explained that even though their commander has signed a contract with the Ministry of Defence that does not concern the PMC’s fighters, who remain unaffiliated with the MoD.

On 31 July, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said that since the PMC is not suffering any shortage of military personnel, they are not intending to continue recruiting. PMC Wagner had previously closed its regional recruitment centres for one month due “to the temporary non-participation in the special military operation and redeployment to Belarus”.