‘I’m not afraid to take a bullet’

Russian convict turned Wagner Group recruit tells Mediazona why he agreed to go fight in Ukraine

Last week, Mediazona reported that Kremlin-linked catering tycoon Evgeny Prigozhin was personally recruiting Russian convicts to fight as mercenaries in Ukraine. In the words of one inmate, Prigozhin offered “not only money, but acquittal and a clean record” to convicts who agreed to enlist in the Wagner Group — a notorious private military company that he is said to finance.

Mediazona published yet another first-hand account of this recruitment effort on August 12. Speaking anonymously, an inmate from a prison in the Yaroslavl region (Penal Colony #2) explained that he decided to go fight in Ukraine after Evgeny Prigozhin visited the prison on August 1. This particular prisoner was supposed to spend more than five years behind bars, Mediazona said.

According to the inmate, Prigozhin assured the prisoners that the chance to go to war comes around “only once in 80 years,” and that the order to recruit volunteers from prisons had come from Russian President Vladimir Putin himself.

Those willing to join the mercenary group were promised a salary of 100,000 rubles ($1,600) per month and another 100,000 rubles as a bonus. After six months in the combat zone, they could receive an official pardon and return home, or renew their contract with the mercenary group, Mediazona’s source said. However, this wasn’t why he decided to enlist:

“I was motivated to go there so that children wouldn’t be killed, or women, or old people. Money, amnesty, and expunging [my] criminal record are not important. If I were free, I would also go. [...] I’m not afraid to take a bullet. I’m not afraid to die. Somehow I don’t worry. Moreover, I talked with my parents. Everyone approved of me going there.”

According to the inmate, after the meeting with the Prigozhin, 300 convicts immediately signed up to join the Wagner Group. But half of them were weeded out due to their age or because they didn’t have passports. All of the “volunteers” were also interviewed individually and tested using a polygraph.

“I don’t remember the name of the person I spoke to. He asked: last name, first name, patronymic. I said [my] date of birth, the article [under which I was convicted]. He says: ‘Why do you want to go?’ I’m like, ‘I can’t watch what’s being shown on TV.’ He says: ‘Do you have someone fighting there?’ I’m like, ‘Yes, I have friends fighting there, distant relatives, my brother was the youngest one. They told me a lot.’ He said: ‘’You’re in, see you later’.”

Convicts who joined the Wagner Group’s ranks were warned that desertion, looting, drinking, and drug use are punishable by execution. They were also asked what they would do if they were taken prisoner. “I said directly: I’ll blow myself up, that’s it. Or I’ll put a bullet in my head, I definitely won’t surrender alive,” the inmate recalled.

According to Mediazona’s source, the recruited convicts will soon be sent to Rostov, where they will sign contracts and take part in two weeks of basic training. Then, they will be deployed to Ukraine as part of a Wagner Group strike force.

In mid-July, Meduza published an in-depth report about Russia mobilizing mercenaries to fight in Ukraine. Meduza special correspondent Liliya Yapparova found that fighters from the Wagner Group were deployed to Ukraine at the end of March, as a result of a recruitment effort organized by the Russian Defense Ministry. The article also cited sources close to the Kremlin, who said that the Wagner Group’s perceived successes at the front have helped Prigozhin get back in Vladimir Putin’s good graces.

In response to the investigation, Prigozhin demanded that Russia’s top investigative body open a criminal case against Liliya Yapparova and Meduza editorial director Tatiana Ershova. The tycoon also urged the Prosecutor General’s Office to outlaw Meduza as an “undesirable organization.”

Media reports about the Wagner Group recruiting convicts to fight in Ukraine first appeared in early July. Later in the month, billboards featuring thinly veiled recruitment ads for the mercenary group began popping up in a number of Russian cities.