Bakhmut price. We received documents “Wagner PMC” about “Project K” - and we know all about the dead and recruited prisoners

Evgeny Prigozhin and his political technologists spent a lot of effort and money to create an image of an effective and ruthless structure for Wagner, which performs the task at all costs. Behind the facade of this legend - many thousands of those who died in “meat assaults” and their heartbroken relatives from the slogans of the Wagnerians reads: “Our business is death, and the business is good.” The Mediazona and the Russian BBC service studied the business on death, receiving documents on the payments of the dead mercenaries-both free and recruited in the colonies. Thanks to these data, we can accurately recreate the chronology of the losses of the Wagnerians in the battle for Bakhmut - and also say how many prisoners went to the front and from which colonies, how many of them died, and who returned to Russia after the Bakhmut meat grinder.

At our disposal was a list of surnames and monetary amounts that the relatives of the dead Wagnerians received. These data relate to both prisoners and ordinary mercenaries. Our source received these lists in August 2023, after the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

For each deceased, we know the number of token, name, call sign, date of death and two amounts. The first, smaller - probably concerned the salary debts at the time of death, and the second is a payment of 5 million rubles specified in the contract with the “PMC Wagner” for death during hostilities.

We have no other data on salaries, as well as payments for injuries.

How we checked the data and why we are confident in their authenticity

To make sure that the documents are genuine, we used four verification methods.

1. Since the beginning of the war, the Mediazona, together with the team of volunteers and the Russian BBC service, has been conducting a captive calculation of the losses of the Russian army for open necrologists. The surface check of the list showed that in our base there were already 6,800 names that coincide with the base of the Wagner PMC. We excluded controversial cases requiring a more thorough analysis: incomplete name, common surnames, and so on.

2. We checked the base of the inheritance affairs recruited in the “Wagner PMC” in the search for a complete coincidence of the name and the date of death, and received the intersection of more than 2,400 names. Prisoners leave the inheritance quite rarely; When calculating Russia's losses on the register of hereditary cases, which Mediazona did together with Medusa, we suggested that about 16 thousand prisoners died during the battle for Bakhmut - that is, our assessment was slightly more conservative than in reality.

3. We studied the chats of the relatives of the Wagnerians, in whom they exchange the numbers of the tokens and look for colleagues, and found everyone who was mentioned there in our table.

4. In December 2023, the New York Times issued a large investigation into recruitment in the IK-6 Kopeisk colony of the Chelyabinsk region. Then the journalists managed to get a list of 197 recruited prisoners and establish the names of 48 dead.

We checked this list and found out that in fact there were seven more people more, while five from the New York Times in the Wagner PMC base. Later it was possible to establish that at least two of them were alive, another - died not in the war.

The conveyor of death is 42174

“A white minibus drove into the area of ​​the zone, from which eight people left in civilian clothes. Four with bags and backpacks remained in the distance, while the other four went to the convicts who had built on the parade ground.

Three strong men were with trunks (on the territory of the colony!) Burnts in waist soft bags. The fourth was in the years, bald, low, and a star of the hero of Russia flaunted on his chest. ”

So in August 2022, the meeting with the Boss "PMC Vagner" Evgeny Prigozhin described one of the prisoners of IK-2 Rybinsk, the Yaroslavl region. By that time, the Wagnerians managed to go around about two dozen colonies and take hundreds of people from all over Central Russia to the war.

The transaction with Prigozhin was simple: six months at the front in exchange for pardon and complete lifting of criminal records, plus monetary allowance and insurance payments to the family in case of death or severe injury. From IK-2 Rybinsk, more than 70 convicts joined the “PMC Wagner”, 23 of which died for a couple of months. Compared to losses in other colonies, this set can be called happy.

It is not known who exactly belonged to the idea of ​​“Project 42174” - this is how the “Wagner PMC” is called the recruitment of the convicts. Probably, it was Prigozhin himself, who in the 1980s received 13 years in colonies for theft and robberies. Calling the prisoners in the Wagner PMC, he more than once mentioned his prison experience. One way or another, the recruitment could not but be agreed with Vladimir Putin - only the president has the authority to sign decrees on pardon.

The conveyor, which supplied prisoners to war, worked quickly and simply. Recruiters came to the colony - either, led by Prigozhin, or without it - and offered a deal. Those who agreed, interviewed and checked - it was argued that the representatives of the “Wagner PMC” looked at their physical training and state of health, but it was not known whether there were generally refusals. Even prisoners with HIV/AIDS and hepatitis were taken to the war - they were distributed into a separate detachment of Ambrell (by the name of the Umbrella biological weapon from films and RESIDENT EVIL Games).

The prisoners left the colony, receiving a certificate of completed persons, which stated that they were released by decree of the President of the Russian Federation “On Compliance” for a specific date or without it. These decrees are secret and not published anywhere.

Then the newly made fighters of the Wagner were transported near Rostov. “After that, they were disbanded on those who served, and those and who were not in the army. At the training ground, in preparation, they were all distributed into groups, as [son] said, mixed like a vinaigrette.

After two weeks of training, they were sent to the Lugansk region, and there they were distributed according to the assault detachments, that is, from one ik, the boys got into different sho and even in sho in different platoons, so many do not know where anyone was, ”writes the mother of one of the mercenaries who survived the chat.

Relatives, as a rule, know almost nothing about the dead. The participation of prisoners in the war looked like this for them: the close one called and reported that he was leaving the colony with the Vagner PMC (but even this did not always happen), then, if he was lucky, a call from the training “for the tape”, then a stingy message about the death from representatives of the company.

One of the most popular requests in relatives chats is the search for colleagues on assault detachments or the search for recruited in the same colony. So the relatives of the Wagnerians want to find out the details of their death; Sometimes relatives are sure that an error occurred, and another body was sent in the zinc coffin.

Recruitment from Kaliningrad to Magadan

When recruiting, each mercenary “Wagner PMC” was assigned a call sign and a token with a personal number.

Before the war of 2022, all mercenaries received a personal number of the type of m-xxxx. The tokens of the series “M” were both near Prigozhin (M-3308) and the commander of the “Wagner PMC” Dmitry Utkin (M-0209).

The prisoners in Wagner's PMC were awarded a separate series of tokens “K”-because of this, the name “Hully” was fixed in the necrologists and in the chats of relatives.

After Putin’s pardon and concluding the contract, the token of the KHX-XXX format was issued, where the first number is a colony, and the second was the number of the person himself. Both the numbering was ordinal: for example, the toon K1 corresponded to the very first colony that the Wagnerians visited, and K617 was the last.

We found out that the recruited from one colony received tokens with the same index, even if the recruiters returned there again. We know only 10 cases when prisoners from one colony during a re -recruitment were assigned another index; Otherwise, this rule was observed.

For example, all the IK-3 “Polar Wolf” recruited in the colony of the special regime in Harpe had tokens K359; The Wagnerians reached here in the tenth of December 2022.

Thanks to the serial numbering of the tokens, we can restore the order and geography of the recruitment, as well as calculate the number of convicts that have gone to the war - it should be no less than the number of the last deceased from the colony.

Why are we confident in the existence of the colonies index, we mentioned the investigation of the New York Times of recruiting in the colony of IK-6 Kopeisk of the Chelyabinsk Region. By comparing the list of those who died from this publication with the Vagner PMC, we found that the tokens of all prisoners from here begin on K206.

The tokens with other indices were given to other colonies recruited in other colonies, that is, “K206” is found only among prisoners from Kopeisk.

Relatives of the Wagnerians in chats also quickly realized that the tokens with one index were received by prisoners of one colony - thanks to these tokens, they were looking for those who left the colony with their relatives.

The Vagner PMCs contain 501 unique “Kashnikov” index - from K1 to K617. 116 numbers are missed; This may have several explanations, but we do not know the exact reason. At our disposal there are documents precisely about the dead, and not about recruited-which means that colonies could have to be recruited on missed indices, in which 2-3 people managed to recruit, and they all survived. In addition, the recruiters could change plans-and they did not visit some colonies, although they were going.

One way or another, we were not able to confirm the existence of the tokens of those who died with indexes, which are not in our table, so we consider the lists complete, and the hypothesis of order numbering is true.

Thanks to leaked bases, messages in relatives chats, sentences and claims of prisoners to the colonies, we managed to compare the 341 token and colonies. We could not install another 160 colonies - however, the recruitment process was not so smooth in them, and they account for only 4.5 thousand who left for war. We know the regime, region and colony for the remaining 43.8 thousand.

The first recruitment took place on July 1, 2022 in IK-7 Yablonevka in the Leningrad Region. The token "K1-001" was issued by the calling with the call sign "GDR"; His name in the documents is not indicated.

The death of the DRC became part of the legend of the “spinkers” in the “Wagner PMC”. Prigozhin repeatedly told this story to other prisoners: the GDRA was 52 years old, 30 of which he spent behind bars, was surrounded in battle, undermined himself with a grenade. “As far as I know, I took four people with him,” Prigozhin added.

The creator of the Wagner PMC called it the first to die at the front, but another information was indicated in the documents: on July 15, the prisoner with the call sign was the first to death with the call sign, then the chronos, and the next day beaver, Bososco and Vegas from IK-9 in Dzerzhinsk were killed.

The general recruitment order is clearly visible on the map below: the Wagnerians moved from west to east and tried to cover almost all the colonies inside the region in which they arrived. It is unlikely that Prigozhin personally visited all the colonies - judging by the speed with which they traveled almost all of Russia, there were several recruiting groups.

After the first successes in St. Petersburg, the Wagner recruiters went to the Nizhny Novgorod region, Karelia, Novgorod and Pskov regions. Around August, they flew to Komi, and then returned to the central regions (Tula, Ryazan, Tver, Kaluga, Vladimir). In September, the recruiters left southwest-Rostov, Voronezh, Belgorod-and then reached the missing regions of the Central District. For the Urals, the Wagner PMCs reached October, and in December they were already in the Far East.

Speaking in the colonies, Prigozhin separately invited robbers and killers in the “Wagner PMC” - and “not household, but conscious” - and promised that they would like the Wagner. Judging by the recruitment data, the Wagnerians really looked primarily for those who committed serious or especially serious crimes: the majority (227) of the colonies that they visited is a strict regime. In total, in Russia, 251 colonies of a maximum regime - probably, recruiters fell into everything or almost everything.

Prigozhin detachments also visited at least 75 general regime colonies and in 28 special colonies. At the beginning of 2023, recruitment began even in colonies-settlements and in LIU, where they contain prisoners with severe chronic diseases.

We were not able to install individual tokens indices for groups that were typed in jail - although some relatives in chats mentioned recruitment in insulators.

There are no direct indications of how many prisoners were recruited in the documents. However, calculating it is very easy.

We have already mentioned that the convicts from one colony issued serial numbers inside one index: KHX-1 is the first recruited prisoner, and, for example, KHXH-132 is the last. The serial number of the last deceased in the list will be a minimum assessment of the number of recruited.

The sum of all known tokens of tokens is 48,366 people . Prigozhin himself evaluated the recruitment of about 50 thousand people.

In early February 2023, Prigozhina’s press service said that the project “42174” was terminated. “In principle, we did not refuse the prisoners, but it was decided to tell the details-according to which the prisoners are most likely to go somewhere to military units, I don’t know, this is already outside my competence,” Prigozhin himself explained in an interview with Z-blogger Semyon.

Judging by the documents, in this interview, Prigozhin also did not shout in his soul: the last recruitment case we know is February 7, 2023 (K616, Liu-42 Leninsk-Kuznetsk, Kemerovo region). Following the prisoners were already taken into the Storm Z already representatives of the Ministry of Defense.

Bakhmut meat grinder

We do not know what purpose Vladimir Putin set before Evgeny Prigozhin, allowing recruitment in the colonies. But we know how Prigozhin ordered tens of thousands of prisoners: almost all the Wagnerians gained in places of imprisonment participated in “meat assaults” under Bakhmut - and here they died.

Prigozhin claimed that the battle for Bakhmut began on October 8, 2022. The Wagner PMC even has a Bakhmut meat grinder medal. On the back of the award is knocked out:

“On October 8, 22, the command of the Wagner PMC and General S. V. Surovikin, it was decided to start the operation“ Bakhmut meat grinder ”in order to save the Russian army and the honor of Russia.”

But the battles in the Bakhmut direction with the participation of the Wagnerians began much earlier. To decide on the start date of the operation, we turned to researchers from Conflict Intelligence Team. In their opinion, the operation to capture Bakhmut began after the mercenaries managed to occupy the Uglegorsk TPP at the end of July-this is a large industrial zone about 20 kilometers southeast of Bakhmut.

According to the Vagner lists, the first recruited prisoner died on July 15, 2022. Based on this, we decided to consider this date the beginning of the battle for Bakhmut.

The date of the battle for Bakhmut is also controversial: Prigozhin claimed that his mercenaries took control of the city on May 20, 2023. Ukraine recognized the capture 10 days later. We decided to take the day when the Wagnerians lost only one person - June 6, 2023.

Thus, the battle for Bakhmut lasted 327 days. During this time, the “Wagner PMC” lost 19.5 thousand people who died, 17.2 thousand of whom are prisoners, and 2.4 thousand are “free” mercenaries.

If we consider the temporary borders of the battle for Bakhmut as Prigozhin defined them - from October 8, 2022 to May 20, 2023, the number of dead will be reduced to 18.3 thousand people.

Key dates of the battle for Bakhmut

July 15 - 26, 2022. Capture of the Uglegorsk TPP. Losses: 58 people.

August 8, 2022. The Z-blogger Boris Rozhin claims that the Wagnerians managed to go to Bakhmut, and the battles are on the street Patrisa Lumoba, that is, on the eastern outskirts of the city. Losses on this day: 10 people.

October 8, 2022. The official beginning of the Bakhmut meat grinder. On this day, 30 Wagnerians died, and from the beginning of the battle - 965.

November 29, 2022. The village of Kurdyumovka south of Bakhmut was almost completely captured. 68 dead, from the beginning of the battle 3,605 dead.

December 15 - 17, 2022. The battles are on the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut - this time is really on Patrice Lumumba Street. 258 dead, from the beginning of the battle of 5,258 dead.

January 11 - 14, 2023. On January 11, Prigozhin poses in Soledar and announces the full capture of the city. On January 14, the Ukrainian project Deepstate, which is monitoring the change in the front line, admits that the city is busy.

In four days, the "PMC Wagner" has lost 626 people, since the beginning of the battle 8,323 dead.

February 18, 2023. Bakhmut is surrounded on three sides. On this day, “Wagner PMC” loses 159 people. Since the beginning of the battle, 12,593 dead.

March 23, 2023. The outskirts of the city are captured. 203 people die on this day. Since the beginning of the battle, 15,933 dead.

April 20, 2023. Ukraine holds only the western part of the city behind the railway. 53 dead Wagnerir on this day, since the beginning of the battle of 17,788 dead.

May 5, 2023. Prigozhin writes his famous video against the backdrop of Mountain Tel. On this day, 61 people died - more than three times less than the peak. Since the beginning of the battle, 18,537 dead.

May 20, 2023. Prigozhin announces that Wagner was captured by Bakhmut. But the battles continue, 48 dead. Since the beginning of the battle: 19,264 dead.

June 5-6, 2023. Битва за Бахмут для «Вагнера» завершилась. Трое погибших, потери с начала битвы: 19 547 человек .

Итоги «бахмутской мясорубки» Пригожин подводил в интервью Z-блогеру Константину Долгову. Он признал настоящую цифру потерь своей ЧВК — 20 тысяч человек — но солгал насчет числа погибших заключенных.

«За время операции я выбрал 50 тысяч заключенных, из которых погибло примерно 20 процентов. Их погибло ровно столько же, сколько и тех, кто пришел к нам по контракту», — утверждал Пригожин.

Основатель «ЧВК Вагнера» сильно преувеличил выживаемость осужденных: согласно спискам, из-под Бахмута не вернулся каждый третий завербованный.

Мы посчитали выживаемость в известных нам колониях на этом графике.

По тапу или клику на квадрат вы можете узнать подробности о каждой колонии.

Отношение «ЧВК Вагнера» к заключенным хорошо показывает одна деталь.

При вступлении в «ЧВК Вагнера» наемникам присваивался не только личный номер жетона, но и позывной — почти всегда уникальный. По спискам видно, что в первые недели работы проекта «47174» заключенным выдавали простые для произношения и запоминания позывные: «Ампер», «Хмырь», «Садист», «Жокей», «Белый» и тому подобное.

Но позже принцип выдачи позывных изменился. Вот несколько позывных заключенных, погибших в один день: «Пемброк», «Регидрон», «Сервилий», «Чисть», «Нервиано», «Сирмионе», «Комедур» и «Тревиол». Впрочем, рядом встречаются и вполне запоминаемые «Шульга», «Кофеёк», «Копченый» и «Навальный».

Вероятно, такое безразличие к позывным объясняется просто: никто и не предполагал, что этим наемникам кто-то выдаст рации, где, собственно, эти позывные и используются. Это позывные для людей, планируемый срок службы которых — один-два штурма.

Иногда это приводило к тому, что родственники не могли найти информацию о погибшем: заключенный говорил своим родным другой, более благозвучный позывной, например «Рябок» стал «Вороном».

Как соотносятся потери «ЧВК Вагнера» и ВСУ

В интервью тому же Долгову Пригожин объяснял , что смысл «Бахмутской мясорубки» был в том, чтобы убить побольше украинских солдат.

«Соотношение следующее: 50 тысяч бойцов ВСУ мы уничтожили. Ориентировочно, трудно подсчитать это точно, 50-70 тысяч имеют ранения, то есть "трехсотые", со стороны ВСУ. <...> В три раза меньше у меня убитыми, может быть даже 3,2, и приблизительно в два раза у меня меньше ранеными», — утверждал он.

Подсчет украинских потерь по открытым источникам ведет анонимный проект UALosses . Мы уже использовали их данные для сравнения потерь ВСУ и ВС РФ — тогда мы проверяли эту базу и сочли ее настоящей.

Проект UALosses работает по тому же принципу, что и основной подсчет погибших «Медиазоны» и Русской службы «Би-би-си» — поиск публично доступных некрологов. Сравнивать полную базу потерь и некрологи неправильно, но других источников информации о потерях ВСУ в публичном доступе нет.

Проект выделяет погибших за Бахмут в отдельную категорию: сейчас в ней больше 8,9 тысяч человек. Но для Украины, в отличие от «ЧВК Вагнера», эта битва до сих пор не закончилась.

Вот данные UALosses:

— Погибших в битве за Бахмут с 15 июля 2022 года по 6 июня 2023: 4 871 человек

— Погибших в битве за Бахмут, чья дата смерти неизвестна: 630 человек

— Всего погибших на всех фронтах за нужный нам период: 16 267 человек.

Последняя цифра дана для сравнения – очевидно, что украинские солдаты гибли не только под Бахмутом.

Маловероятно, что UALosses видит лишь 10% некрологов — а значит никаких 50 тысяч погибших под Бахмутом украинских солдат нет. Стоит также учитывать, что в битве за Бахмут участвовали не только «ЧВК Вагнера», но и другие подразделения — и они тоже несли потери.

Вольные наемники

Вербуя заключенных, Пригожин утверждал, что они — не «пушечное мясо», и служить будут наравне с вольными. Этому верили и родственники завербованных: в обсуждениях в чате они часто подчеркивают, что договоры с «Вагнером» их близкие заключали после помилования — то есть, будучи юридически не судимыми; значит, внутри ЧВК все равны.

Судя по данным о потерях, это и близко не так.

Вопреки утверждению Пригожина, доля «пришедших по контракту» в потерях — не половина, а всего 12%. О вольных наемниках мы можем сказать совсем немного.

Как утверждали связанные с «ЧВК Вагнера» телеграм-каналы, первые месяцы наемники не участвовали во вторжении в Украину. «Первые 700 бойцов» прибыли из Африки 19 марта, утверждал «Канал специального назначения» в телеграме. Уже 20 марта в файле «Вагнера» появляется первая запись о погибшем наемнике с позывным «Зной». Днем позже погибло сразу 11 вагнеровцев.

Весной 2022 года «ЧВК Вагнера» участвовала в боях в Луганской области, в том числе в захвате Северодонецка и Попасной. До битвы за Бахмут группировка потеряла больше 300 человек.

На фоне «Бахмутской мясорубки» эта цифра не впечатляет, но надо учесть, что сам «Вагнер» был не такой большой структурой: в утечках 2021 года упоминаются не более 9 тысяч фамилий. Силы наемников оставались в ЦАР, Судане и Ливии. Для серьезных операций при таком уровне потерь этого было недостаточно, а рекламная кампания не могла быстро дать необходимого количества рекрутов.

В списках «Вагнера» встречаются как наемники со старыми, довоенными сериями жетонов («М» и «Б»), так и ранее неизвестные «В», «А», «П», «С», «Т» и «У». Однозначно объяснить логику можно только с серией «П» — это пилоты, авиагруппа «Вагнера». Их 12 человек.

Как минимум 73 заключенных, отслужив полгода по контракту, решили остаться с ЧВК, получили жетон серии «В», а затем погибли. Погибших с жетонами серий «М» и «Б» в сумме 228 человек.

108 млрд похоронных

Очевидно, что «ЧВК Вагнера» тратила деньги не только на посмертные выплаты — но даже эта сумма огромна.

По контракту родственники погибшего получали 5 млн рублей плюс 300 тысяч на погребение. Вместо последней суммы можно было получить организацию похорон от «ЧВК Вагнера» — тогда в списках ставилась пометка «похороны за счет Компании».

Кроме этого, в посмертные списки также вносились последние зарплаты погибших — у некоторых она доходила до полутора миллионов рублей.

Только на выплаты родственникам завербованных заключенных ушло 92,5 млрд рублей.

На выплаты наемникам по обычным контрактам «ЧВК Вагнера» потратила 15,4 млрд рублей.

Итого «ЧВК Вагнера» за время действия группировки в Украине потратило на выплаты погибшим почти 108 млрд.

«Поменяла война людей?»

Из 48 тысяч прошедших через «Бахмутскую мясорубку» заключенных в живых остались около 31 тысячи человек.

В чате родственников вагнеровцев есть обсуждение под названием «Поменяла война людей?». Вот первые сообщения из этой темы:

«Хер его знает. Пьёт как не в себя. Белку поймал. Бегает по двору, окоп капал😭😭😭 это писец с 5 апреля вообще покой стал только снится»

«Ничего не меняется. Лучше бы сидел дальше. А то выжили, пришли, и решили что они бессмертны, и теперь могут делать что хотят»

«Привет всем...Приехал мой 3 апреля. 4 дня жили душа в душу, успокоилась что вернулся, вроде эмоционально уровновешен... На 5 день напился с другом. Приехал в 3 часа ночи, разбил кувалдой мою машину, меня сильно избил... Спрашивают меняет ли война людей, к сожалению да и не в лучшую сторону...»

«Мой как месяц дома,не может войти в колею,сидел дома плохо все его достало,вышел на работу опять плохо,начал выпивать,стало крыша ехать,а вчера руку поднял на меня,разбил мне нос.У нас 2 деток не знаю,что делать,руки уже опускаются».

Конечно, есть и позитивные примеры: некоторые пишут, что на войне человек повзрослел или радуются, что у близкого после помилования появился шанс начать жизнь с чистого листа. Те, кто таким шансом не воспользовался, регулярно попадают в криминальные сводки: новости о том, что бывший наемник из «ЧВК Вагнера» совершил какое-то преступление, появляются почти каждый день. К концу 2023 года, по подсчетам «Верстки», против них возбудили около 200 уголовных дел.

Конвейер по вербовке заключенных продолжает работать даже после смерти его создателя — с той лишь разницей, что из колоний забирают в отряды Минобороны «Шторм Z».

После неудачного бунта российские власти стремятся предать «ЧВК Вагнера» забвению, но методы, которые использовал Пригожин, оказались востребованы: в «мясные штурмы» теперь отправляют не только заключенных, но и обычную пехоту.

Данные: Дата-отдел «Медиазоны», Дмитрий Трещанин, Русская служба «Би-би-си»

*Визуализация: Дата-отдел «Медиазоны»

Текст: Дмитрий Трещанин, Дата-отдел «Медиазоны»

При участии Егора Сковороды и Мики Голубовского*