<\/p>\n
Prisoners at the penal colony in St. Petersburg were waiting for the visit of the officials, thinking it would be some kind of inspection. Instead, uniformed men arrived and offered them amnesty, if they agreed to fight alongside the Russian army in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Over the next few days, about a dozen walked out of the prison, according to a woman whose boyfriend is serving time there. Speaking on condition of anonymity because she feared reprisals, she said her boyfriend was not among the volunteers, although with years behind bars, he “couldn’t help but think about it.”<\/p>\n
As Russia continues to suffer losses in its invasion of Ukraine, now approaching its sixth month, the Kremlin has refused to announce a full-scale mobilization, a move that could be deeply unpopular with President Vladimir Putin. This has instead led to a covert recruiting effort that includes the use of prisoners to make up for labor shortages.<\/p>\n
This also comes amid reports that hundreds of Russian soldiers are refusing to fight and trying to desert the army.<\/p>\n
“We are seeing a large exodus of people who want to leave the war zone: those who have served for a long time and those who have recently signed a contract,” said Alexei Tabalov, a lawyer who runs the school. Conscript law. help group<\/p>\n
The group has seen an influx of requests from men who want to terminate their contracts, “and I personally have the impression that everyone who can is ready to run,” Tabalov said in an interview with The Associated Press. “And the Ministry of Defense is digging deep to find those it can persuade to serve.” <\/p>\n
Although the Ministry of Defense denies that “mobilization activities” are taking place, it appears that the authorities are doing everything possible to strengthen the enlistment. Billboards and public transport advertisements in various regions proclaim “This is work”, and call on men to join the professional army. Authorities have set up mobile recruitment centers in some cities, including one at the site of a half marathon in Siberia in May. <\/p>\n
The regional administrations form “volunteer battalions” that are promoted on state television. The trade daily Kommersant counted at least 40 such entities in 20 regions, with officials promising volunteers monthly salaries ranging from the equivalent of $2,150 to nearly $5,500, plus bonuses.<\/p>\n
The AP saw thousands of job postings on job search websites for various military specialists.<\/p>\n
The British military said this week that Russia had formed a major new ground force called the 3rd Army Corps from “volunteer battalions”, which seek men up to 50 years old and require only a secondary education, while which offer “lucrative cash bonuses” once deployed in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
But there are also complaints in the media that some are not receiving promised payments, although these reports cannot be independently verified.<\/p>\n
In early August, Tabalov said he began receiving multiple requests for legal help from reservists who have been ordered to take part in two months of training in areas near the border with Ukraine. <\/p>\n
The recruitment of prisoners has taken place in recent weeks in as many as seven regions, said Vladimir Osechkin, founder of the prisoners’ rights group Gulagu.net, citing prisoners and their relatives his group had contacted.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time authorities have used this tactic, as the Soviet Union employed “prisoner battalions” during World War II.<\/p>\n
Russia is not alone either. Earlier in the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised amnesty to military veterans behind bars if they volunteered to fight, although it is not yet clear whether anything has come of it.<\/p>\n
Under the current circumstances, Osechkin said, it is not the Ministry of Defense that is recruiting prisoners, but Russia’s private military force, the Wagner Group.<\/p>\n
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman known as “Putin’s chef” for his catering contracts with the Kremlin and reportedly Wagner’s manager and financier, dismissed reports that he personally visited prisons to recruit convicts, in a statement written published by their representatives this month. Prigozhin, in fact, denies that he has any ties to Wagner, who is said to have sent military contractors to places like Syria and sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n
According to Osechkin, prisoners with military or law enforcement experience were initially offered to go to Ukraine, but later it was extended to inmates with different backgrounds. He estimated that as many as 1,500 may have applied by the end of July, lured by promises of big salaries and eventual pardons.<\/p>\n
Now, he added, many of those volunteers, or their families, are contacting him and looking to get out of their commitments, telling him, “I really don’t want to go.”<\/p>\n
The offers to leave prison are “a glimmer of hope” for freedom, according to the woman whose boyfriend is serving time in the penal colony in St. Petersburg. But he said he was told that out of 11 volunteers, eight died in Ukraine. He added that one of the volunteers regretted his decision and does not think he will return alive.<\/p>\n
His account could not be independently verified, but was in line with several reports from independent Russian media and human rights groups.<\/p>\n
According to these groups and military lawyers, some soldiers and law enforcement officers have refused to deploy to Ukraine or are trying to return home after weeks or months of fighting. <\/p>\n
Media reports of some troops refusing to fight in Ukraine began to emerge in the spring, but rights groups and lawyers only began to talk about the number of refusals reaching hundreds a month past<\/p>\n
In mid-July, the Free Buryatia Foundation reported that about 150 men were able to terminate their contracts with the Ministry of Defense and returned from Ukraine to Buryatia, a region in eastern Siberia bordering Mongolia.<\/p>\n
Some of the military are facing repercussions. Tabalov, the legal aid lawyer, said about 80 other soldiers who wanted to cancel their contracts were detained in the Russian-held town of Bryanka in the eastern Luhansk region. Ukraine, according to his relatives. Last week, he said the Bryanka detention center was closed due to media attention.<\/p>\n
But the father of an officer who was arrested after trying to get out of his contract told the AP this week that some are still being held elsewhere in the region. The father asked not to be identified due to security concerns.<\/p>\n
Tabalov said a serviceman can terminate his contract for a compelling reason, which is usually not difficult, although the decision usually rests with his commander. But he added: “Under the conditions of hostilities, not a single commander would recognize anything of the sort, for where would they find men to fight?” <\/p>\n
Alexandra Garmazhapova, head of the Free Buryatia Foundation, told the AP that soldiers and their relatives complain that commanders are breaking cease-fire notices and threatening “refuseniks” with prosecution. In late July, the foundation said it had received hundreds of requests from soldiers who wanted to terminate their contracts.<\/p>\n
“I get messages every day,” Garmazhapova said.<\/p>\n
Tabalov said some soldiers complain they were misled about where they were going and didn’t expect to end up in a war zone, while others are exhausted from fighting and can’t continue.<\/p>\n
They rarely, if ever, seemed motivated by anti-war convictions, the lawyer said.<\/p>\n
Russia will continue to face problems with soldiers who refuse to fight, military analyst Michael Kofman said, but Russia’s ability to “go under … with half measures” should not be underestimated.<\/p>\n
“They’re going to have a lot of people who quit or basically don’t want to deploy,” Kofman, director of the Russia Studies Program at the Virginia-based Center for Naval Analyses, said in a recent podcast. . “And they’ve taken a lot of measures to try to keep people online. But ultimately, there’s not much they can do.”<\/p>\n
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at <\/p>\n