In an account provided to The Times, a Russian soldier describes his commanders’ casual disregard for the lives of inmates like him, and how they are pressured to re-enlisIn a month spent at the front line, Aleksandr, an ex-convict serving in the Russian Army, hadn’t seen a single Ukrainian soldier and had barely fired a shot. The threat of death came from a distance, and seemingly from everywhere.
Sent to guard against a potential river crossing in southern Ukraine, his hastily formed unit, made up almost entirely of inmates, endured weeks of relentless bombardment, sniper attacks and ambushes. The marshy, flat terrain offered no cover beyond the burned-out hulks of cottages. He said he had watched dogs gnaw at the uncollected corpses of his dead comrades, drunk rain water and scavenged garbage dumps for food.
Aleksandr claims that out of the 120 men in his unit, only about 40 remain alive. These survivors are being heavily pressured by the Russian military to remain on the battlefield at the end of their six-month contracts, according to Aleksandr and accounts provided to The New York Times from two other Russian inmates fighting on the front line.
“We are being sent to a slaughter,” Aleksandr said in a series of audio messages from the Kherson region, referring to his commanders. “We are not human to them, because we are criminals.”His account provides a rare window into the fighting in Ukraine from a Russian inmate’s perspective. Units made up of convicts have become one of the cornerstones of Russian military strategy as the prolonged fighting has decimated the country’s regular forces. Aleksandr’s descriptions could not be independently confirmed, but they aligned with accounts from Ukrainian soldiers and Russian prisoners of war who said that Moscow used inmates essentially as cannon fodder.The soldiers’s accounts were obtained through voice messages over the last two weeks, some in direct interviews and some through messages provided by family members and friends. Their last names, personal details and military units have been withheld to protect them against retribution.
Aleksandr’s testimony conveys the brutality imposed on Russian convicts, and the human cost Moscow is prepared to maintain control of the occupied territory.
The Russian Defense Ministry began to sign up thousands of inmates from the country’s jails in special units called “Storm Z” in February, after taking over a prison recruitment model used by the Wagner private military company in the first year of the war.Aleksandr said he had enlisted in March, shortly after receiving a long prison term for homicide in central Russia. He left at home a wife, a daughter and a newborn son, and was worried that he would not survive the torture and extortions in his jail.Like other inmate fighters, he was promised a monthly salary of $2,000 at today’s exchange rate, and freedom at the end of his six month contract, a copy of which he shared with The Times.
Wagner claims that 49,000 inmates fought for its force in Ukraine, and that 20 percent of them died. Former fighters have described brutal disciplinary measures imposed by the paramilitary group. .
However, Wagner survivors have also broadly said that they were able to collect wages and return home after six months as free men. To lift the recruitment numbers, Wagner also worked to rehabilitate the inmates in the eyes of Russian society, presenting their military service as a patriotic redemption.
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