Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin announces an end to the recruitment of Russian prisoners - allegedly because of "millions" of applications from the USA.
Moscow - The Wagner group was long considered a Russian shadow army, the businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed "Putin's cook" was traded in the background as its financier.
In the course of the Ukraine war, Prigozhin made his first public appearance as head of the mercenary army, and in November last year the Wagner group even opened an official headquarters in St. Petersburg.
In view of the problems of the Russian army, Kremlin confidante Prigozhin gained more and more power.
Now the Wagner boss claims that he no longer wants to recruit prisoners from Russian prisons for his mercenary troupe - allegedly also because he has received "ten million" applications from Americans.
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The logo of the Wagner Group at the headquarters in the Russian city of St. Petersburg, which opened in November 2022 (archive image).
© IMAGO/Maksim Konstantinov / Russian Look
Wagner Group wants to have “ten million” applications from the USA
The Russian mercenary group Wagner has said it has ended its recruitment drive in Russian prisons to support Russian forces in Ukraine.
"The recruitment of prisoners for the private mercenary group Wagner has been completely stopped," its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Thursday in a statement distributed by his press service.
All "obligations" to the members of the group are being fulfilled, Prigozhin added.
The Wagner boss also claimed that "over ten million Americans applied for Wagner," war experts at the US think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in their daily report on Thursday.
This statement by the Wagner boss could not be independently verified, but the ISW experts described the report as "absurd" and immediately qualified Prigozhin's statements: The Wagner group will in all probability continue to recruit prisoners from Russian prisons, albeit in one much lower capacity, according to the assessment of the ISW.
The US war experts had previously noted that the recruitment of prisoners by the Russian mercenary force had slowed in recent months.
This is also confirmed by statistics from the Federal Penitentiary Service in Russia, which show that the decline in Russia's prisoner population stabilized between November 2022 and January 2023, the ISW report added.
Wagner group recruited up to 40,000 Russian prisoners - apparently as "cannon fodder"
Reports emerged in mid-2022 that businessman Prigozhin, with ties to the Kremlin, had recruited prisoners to fight in Ukraine and promised them immunity from their sentences if they returned to Russia.
According to the US government, a total of 50,000 people are fighting for Wagner in Ukraine, 40,000 of them prisoners.
Wagner mercenaries play a key role in the Russian offensive on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which has been bitterly contested for months.
However, the ISW war experts assume that the Russian military will gradually replace the Wagner group around Bachmut.
This indicates that the Russian military leadership wants to reduce its dependence on the mercenary force.
The prisoners would only be used as "cannon fodder"
According to their own statements, the Wagner group led the attack on the salt mining town of Soledar, which came under Russian control in January.
The private combat force has repeatedly reported victories at the front ahead of the Russian army and has in some cases competed with the Russian army.
Prigozhin himself had sometimes openly criticized the Russian military leadership and had increasingly become a political problem for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to military experts, the Russian army is therefore less reliant on the Wagner Group, which apparently means that Prigozhin is losing more and more ground in Russia.
Founded in 2014, the mercenary force has been involved in conflicts in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East,
(bme with material from AFP)
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