Vladimir Putin has let paedophiles, murderers and cannibals out of prison to fight in Ukraine
After serving time in the army and seen the horrors of war, the criminals have returned to fight for the Russian president as free men. Two men were among the notorius group released have been either accused or convicted of sexual assault against young girls. Convicts have already killed terrorised their hometowns and communities who believed they would not be back.
A recruitment drive began in mid-2022 and comes after people refused to sign-up to fight against Ukraine. Troops were pushed back from Kyiv at the beginning of the war and my summer counter-offensives.
Putin's forces then numbered around 190,000 and were nowhere near the numbers they needed to fight back against Ukraine. After Russians forces were restrained in the east of the country they needed to recruit thousands of prison convicts to swell there ranks. Reports suggested the Wagner group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, were known to have been recruited from prisons in July 2022,growing its ranks by 49,000.
He later staged an attempted coup against the Kremlin and died in a plane explosion, but was previously seen in footage in prisons around St. Petersburg.
Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decadeHe then told them: "We need your criminal talents" The Russian Ministry of Defence is said to have followed suit. it is claimed Wagner, and later Russia, offered prisoners a simple deal: serve in the army for six months, and leave a free man with a bonus of 100,000 roubles. Survival was was not guaranteed, however and would-be recruits were told 10 to 15% of them would come back from Ukraine 'zinc coffins'.
Convict soldiers, Prigozhin said would be used as used as shock troops against Ukraine's defences. But captured Wagner soldiers, claimed they were as 'little more than cannon fodder' used to find defensive weak points.
A rapist was released eight years in prison was detained again after an alleged sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl. Nikolai Nechaev, 38, of Perm, was convicted of a 2019 rape and other crimes.
He is suspected of "committing violent acts of a sexual nature" against a girl of school, age and is being held until further investigations are carried out.
Another man freed to fight in Ukraine - had was returned to to jail for 17 years after raping two schoolgirls who were aged ten and 12. Sergei Shakhmatov, 42, wore his military uniform as hehung around close to school gate in Novosibirsk. He threatened he would use an with an army-issue grenade to blow them up unless they submitted to him.
Denis Gorin was jailed for multiple murders and cannibalism pardoned by Putin as reward for serving in his war against Ukraine And military serviceman Stanislav Ionkin, was detained for shooting a flare gun that started a deadly fire in the Polygon club in Kostroma which caused the ceiling to collapse “
And Nikolay Ogolobyak, from Yaroslavl, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the deaths of four teenagers in an apparent satanic ritual. He also received a pardon from Putin.
A Platoon commander called Alexander Mameyev, 44, was also held on suspicion of stabbing his wife Ekaterina to death in front of their sons. And soldier Sergei Batuyev, 39, was accused of strangling his friend Denis Shustov, 41, in a brawl after returning from the war. Prosecutors said he planned to feed his remains to pigs.
Wagner fighter Ivan Rossomakhin, 28, who was in jail for murder, killed his village neighbour Yulia Buiskykh after being pardoned by Putin.