Only 10’000 left of 50’000
Most Wagner mercenaries are dead, injured, or deserted
Dead, fled or deserted: there are fewer and fewer Wagner mercenaries at the front. This puts Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in distress.
Published: 6 minutes ago
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Yevgeny Prigozhin recruited 50,000 prisoners who fought at the front.
The number is shocking: According to civil rights activists, of the 50,000 recruits recruited in Russian prisons for the war in Ukraine, only 10,000 are still with the troops.
“The rest were killed, injured, disappeared, surrendered or deserted, including to Russia, with weapons in their hands,” said the non-governmental organization (NGO) “Rus Sidyashchaia” (Russia behind bars) on Monday on its telegram channel with.
The fact that soldiers are being taken prisoner of war or fleeing is a problem for the head of the Wagner troupe, the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin (61), said the founder of the NGO, Olga Romanova. Prigozhin should not show these statistics to Russian President Vladimir Putin (70), said Romanova. Because Putin’s cook has been given unlimited powers to recruit the prisoners on the condition that he has full control over them.
Deserters are killed
Some of the prison inmates were personally recruited by Prigozhin. When he was recruited, he promised the prisoners that they would be released after they had completed their military service. At the same time he threatened deserters with summary killings. Human rights activists report of Wagner mercenaries being executed.
A video distributed weeks ago by the Wagner squad is intended to demonstrate the seriousness of the threat: it shows a prisoner being beaten to death with a sledgehammer. The man had previously been taken prisoner of war by the Ukraine, but returned to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange.