"PMC fulfills desires, many have death"

The head of the Rus Sitting Foundation Olga Romanova - about how the recruitment of prisoners for war is arranged

Representatives of the Wagner PMC recruit Russian prisoners to war in Ukraine, promising them cash payments and amnesty. On September 15, the associates of Alexei Navalny published a video in which Evgeny Prigozhin personally campaigns sitting to the front. The Foundation "Sitting Rus" Olga Romanova helps to "recapture" the prisoners from sending to war; Relatives of the recruited are also addressed by her when they believe that their rights are violated. According to Romanova, every day she receives at least five such messages. Romanova told “cold” about how exactly the recruiting is carried out and what it threatens Russia in the future.

After publishing the video in the press service of the Concord company, owned by Evgeny Prigozhin, they said that a person in the video “really monstrously similar to Evgeny Viktorovich”

On what basis are the prisoners are now sent to the front? Do they conclude contracts or are it oral agreements?

-More or less formalized about a month ago. Initially, prisoners signed the papers of the most fantasy sense: we have samples printed literally on a typewriter, like Ostap Bender, with the consent of the police of the self -proclaimed republics, or, for example, we saw the forms of the Ministry of Defense on which the convicts were painted. Now more and more formalized. Two papers are signed: a petition for pardon in the name of the President and a request for the transfer to the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Rostov Region. We sent a lot of lawyer requests to establish where people [signing these documents] are located, and received answers from the department: they were transferred to the Rostov region, and they were in prison there. At the same time, the other day VKontakte appeared an advertising video , where he supposedly convicts from strict zones, while in the war, they say: “Come to us guys, here we’ll beat with the Nazis,” - well, that. That is, no one hides that they are fighting there: both Nikita Mikhalkov and federal channels - but at the same time, official answers come to us that these people are still in prison.

And what is the mechanism of this recruiting?

- As far as I understand the evidence of eyewitnesses, the legal mechanism here as such does not exist at all: a helicopter arrives at the zone, people in black come from there, often with the [businessman, who is called the owner of the Wagner Evgeny] Prigozhin, expel the zone employees, talk with convicts, conduct interviews - in general, behave as hosts. And they just take as many people as they need. At first, in July, 40-60 people were taken away, and today we are coming to us that they take more than a hundred.

And how many volunteers, in your opinion, can be squeezed out of the FSIN system?

- 50 thousand people are easy. I think that they will finish off about this figure, the recruiters and Lugansk themselves are simply not yet coping. Therefore, they send as much as they can, and not so much as they want.

Is it true that first of all they take convicts for serious crimes?

- Yes, first of all they select ruthless: killers convicted of serious bodily harm, recidivists.

How are they collected for war?

- Close personal files ( the consumption of documents that reflect information about the prisoner. - approx. "Cold" ) with them they are given a couple of replaceable panties and socks and two packs of cigarettes - that's all. No packages - only what can be put in a pocket. They say that they will all be provided on the spot. They are brought to IK-2 in the Rostov region, they are dressed in Zelenka ( camouflage.-Approx. “Cold” ), no matter what it means. There they have drypacks, they give a dream for 3-4 hours for food and sleep, the rest of the time is serious training. The convicts are already exhausted, no one has unnecessary fat deposits, and in general they are not quite healthy people. There are such serious trials for people who often do not even have initial military training, many did not serve in the army, because they are sitting all their lives. And so, after after such intensive preparation, they are sent to the front to the Lugansk region within 10-14 days. For some reason, the DPR does not appear, everything is Lugansk. Hospitalles where they lie, also in the Lugansk region.

You said that the conditions for sending to the front are not always respected: payments do not come, criminal cases do not close. Does this affect the recruitment?

- No, it does not affect at all. Firstly, no matter how loudly we scream, our voices, of course, are drowning in propaganda. People are not at all accustomed to consume information, except from Vladimir Solovyov, there is simply no culture of searching for information. They [relatives of the recruited] are terribly surprised when I send them to the dick. Previously, we had the main problem - “help to knock out the money”, and now - “Help find and take out the body”. And I am no longer able to explain what it was impossible to explain from the very beginning, I just send it. I do not want to communicate with the conscious killers who went to fight in someone else's country.

There are quite a few appeals: "Help to pull out a relative, he is not voluntarily [went to war], he was forced." You ask a few more questions, it turns out - even as voluntarily. The convicts are recruited willingly. Someone is dull, someone is an ideological bandit. But mostly they think like this: it is better in war than in the torture zone.

Very few of the convicts go to the war for money: payments are mostly interested in relatives.

It turns out that there are relatives who persuade the convicts to go to war?

- Yes, this happens all the time. And sometimes they try to do it through us. There are many appeals: "My brother or husband is sitting in some zone-help him go to war." And then the question: “Why [sent] to the dick? We will complain about Putin! " Well, go ahead.

At the same time, you once said that the relatives, on the contrary, dissuaded some prisoners.

- Differently. Now a woman is fighting, trying to return her son. He assures that he went illly, but I think that it is voluntary, because he is a native of [self -proclaimed] LPR, and all [prisoners] who are from the LPR want to be closer to the house. His term ends in a week, that’s what he suffered there? Different arguments work - or no.

But in general, do few people interfere with the sending of loved ones?

- Few. We had one wonderful example of a woman who repelled her husband from a zone in the Tver region. And not only did she repel it, she repulsed the whole zone using our algorithms - to write everywhere, write to everyone. I started talking to her, and she says: “Well, yes, what should he do there, this is a private military company! There would be a state -owned thing. ” Here is an argument ... We admired her for a week, how she fought and achieved, began to talk, and that’s what ...

There is one zone, a bad zone, in the north, I will not call the republic, otherwise it will be immediately clear. And they had people from PMCs. When they left, the head of the zone, a bad zone, a bad boss, - he walked along the prisoners and persuaded them not to do this. And still, half of the prison signed up.

And the relatives who oppose the recruitment do not threaten?

“I can’t say that they are threatened.” We have one ascetic, who from the first day beats for its person. She feels observation, she understands all this, she is very persistent. They do not directly threaten her, but the lawyer who arrived at the zone from where the person was taken away was instantly called from St. Petersburg to Moscow to the Investigative Committee. Supposedly in another case. And, according to her, the investigators directly told him, they say, we all understand, you are a good man, but ridiculous people ( people who hold positions in different departments. - Approx. “Cold” ), FSBSHNI, they asked to convey: we will find 10 years in your pants for 10 years. That's all.

Can you help these people?

- We are ready to cooperate with them, give tips in closed chats, but with whom to take place? We have four to five wives, mothers, sisters who can be talked with, and everyone else ... They are also ready to fight, but for money, for something else. And they do not understand why human rights activists are not ready to stand up for their defense.

By what principle are the recruitment zones selected?

- There is no principle, there is a “chock”. In the European part of the country, PMCs were not visited only to the Kaliningrad region: at least there is not a single message from there. In all other regions, from Komi to Adygea and from Pskov to Tatarstan, they were in all areas except for life and special regime, well, and colonies-settlements, because there are already almost free convicts. Allegedly, Wagnerovtsov was noticed in the Urals, but so far there is no evidence. By the way, they say, that the recruiters began to be lazy: no one flew into one of the Tatar colonies at all, the Zonovskie authorities read out the appeal of PMCs and said that, they say, those who wanted to submit an application addressed to the head of the colony.

We already know that they are recruiting supervised and recruited to the pre -trial detention center. Regarding the recruitment in the pre -trial detention center, we have several audio messages with details and one video that I vowed not to show anyone, but it is. This is the person over whom the trial has now begun.

Do people in a pre -trial detention center willingly agree to go to war?

- Willingly, because they promise to close criminal cases. But in fact, they are not closed, but suspended. We have one shell-shocked, sitting according to the 158th article ( theft. -Approx. “Cold” ), he had already returned from there-and immediately went to prison again.

And there are cases when the cases were closed, is there?

- No. Not yet. A lot of lies about this: for example, they promise in the case of a heroic feat to deliver a mother or wife for a meeting on an airplane. Well, you understand. And, of course, they promise, and Nikita Mikhalkov prompted this throughout Russia, posthumous pardon. If anything, we do not have a legal mechanism of posthumous pardon.

But I do not claim that they do not pay anything to anyone. I know for sure several advertising payments, I know one widow who received more than five million rubles. There [in Ukraine], Safarov from the Novgorod region died: he was sitting in a colony, Prigozhin personally came , cried over his grave. From the first detachment, where there were 68 people, 61 were killed. They paid one widow, and it was very widely fed. But I don’t know anything about the second payment, although I know by the names of those who died.

How many Russian prisoners are now fighting in Ukraine? Can they be counted?

- At least three thousand people recruited. Stages are still going, on August 24 a large stage left from the Ryazan region, from IK-5, and people waited in line for about a month. They took them away at night.

From this first batch, three thousand people, almost all were killed. But much more people have signed up, who wanted to go to the war a lot.

PMC fulfills the cherished desire, and many [prisoners] are death. Someone is looking for money, someone freedom, but mainly death, as a way out of the matrix. They are superfluous people everywhere, they perfectly understand that nobody needs anywhere. In Russia, for sure: there is no rehabilitation or social services, no one is waiting for them, not to get a job, there are no social ties. Staled-sprinkled-in prison-their entire life cycle. And they just try to break out of this, realizing their complete unnecessary. This is such disposal of the population: prisons are released, security officials are released, because there is no need to catch anyone, it is not necessary to organize any social assistance, although it has never been.

When will this recruitment end? Can it stop?

“I think this can continue endlessly.” I am convinced that this is a personal Putin’s decision: no one is the Central apparatus of the FSB, nor [the head of the FSB Alexander] Bortnikov, nor even [Secretary of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Federation Nikolai] Patrushev, can give such an order that the helicopter to the zone and from there to be uncontrolled and sent to the war people who, by court decision, are listed as this institution.

Today I saw this VKontakte advertising video, and under it, of course, amazing comments that come down to "rape all the crests there as they wanted." Count, parting words under the commercial? I really liked how Sergey Medvedev said in an interview with Lev Gudkov from Levada: “Anthropological changes are taking place in the country.” Previously, we could talk about this theoretically, discussing South Korea and North Korea: some tall, beautiful, with cinema and everyone in the world, while others are small, strange and lower in tall. For almost 80 years of separation of the country, they have become different nations. And we happened to us in six months, now we see it with our own eyes.

And what's next?

The worst thing is that they can return. People who have long received mental injuries in the zone are not psychological, namely mental - people who have not passed rehabilitation after crimes went to the war, where they were still injured. And so they return to freedom. What do you think, how many of them will live a quiet and peaceful life? About 0%. This is a very dangerous thing. But one must understand, and, apparently, Putin also thinks - few will return.