Ritual workers stand next to bodies of killed Russian soldiers before loading them to a refrigerated rail car, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, at a compound of a morgue in Kharkiv, Ukraine May 22, 2022.
Ritual workers stand next to bodies of killed Russian soldiers before loading them to a refrigerated rail car, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, at a compound of a morgue in Kharkiv, Ukraine May 22, 2022.

The Russian army is now recruiting prisoners with combat experience to join the war in Ukraine as Moscow continues to suffer heavy military losses amid the invasion, according to a report.

Representatives from the Wagner Group, also known as Putin’s “shadow army,” and the Federal Security Service (FSB) are allegedly going around several penal colonies in Russian cities offering prisoners military contracts that would either have them deployed as soldiers to the battlefield or give them work on restoring territories that Russian forces have captured in Ukraine.

The list of penal colonies visited by the representatives of the Russian army included St. Petersburg, Tver, Ryazan, Smolensk, Rostov, Voronezh and Lipetsk, according to a Telegram post from Gulagu.net prisoner’s rights group.

Members of the Russian army, who wore “civilian clothes” during their visits to the penal colonies, are said to have recruited around 300 prisoners in Adygeya and 70 from Nizhny Novgorod over the past few days.

Gulagu.net cited the relatives of prisoners as well as people inside the penal colonies as its sources.

The prisoner rights group’s report corroborates previous independent media investigations detailing the efforts of the Russian military and Wagner in offering high salaries and compensation to prisoners who agreed to join the war. However, prisoners were not offered written contracts. Instead, the recruiters made promises that their families would be paid 5 million rubles ($90,500) in case of their death in the war.

“My relative was told: ‘It’s very difficult to detect Nazis there [in Ukraine], they’re very well trained,’” a family member of an unnamed prisoner told iStories. “They said: ‘You’ll be in the vanguard helping detect the Nazis, so not everyone will come back.’”

Similar recruitment drives were also reported by The Moscow Times at two shipyards managed by the United Shipbuilding Corporation, a state-owned company, and Metalloinvest mining works, a company owned by Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov. Prisoners were offered monthly salaries amounting to 300,000 rubles ($5,300).

Both United Shipbuilding Corporation and Metalloinvest have been sanctioned by Britain, Europe and the United States for their involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

Ukrainian soldiers inspect a destroyed warehouse reportedly targeted by Russian troops on outskirts of eastern Lysychansk

Ukrainian soldiers inspect a destroyed warehouse reportedly targeted by Russian troops on outskirts of eastern Lysychansk Photo: AFP / ARIS MESSINIS