Britain’s Defense Ministry intelligence agency said on Friday that some 20,000 Wagner Group mercenaries have been killed in combat since the invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
For the British services, these figures represent “one of the bloodiest episodes in modern military history”.
In a short report published on the social network Twitter, the same source considers it likely that a “significant number” of the prisoners most recently recruited by the Wagner Group have accepted to continue fighting in the ranks of the paramilitary group .
UK services further reported that the prisoner recruitment program run by the Wagner Group in prisons peaked in early 2023, with at least 40,000 recruits.
London also pointed out that this recruitment of prisoners allowed Russia to take Bakhmut, but after the withdrawal of mercenaries from the region, Kiev made significant progress in this eastern Ukrainian city.
After the mercenary group staged a failed coup in Russia, Russia’s Defense Ministry will now be in charge of recruiting in the country’s prisons.
After the failed uprising at the end of June, the head of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his men went to Belarus with the permission of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a fact that for Kiev and its Western partners is a sign of the weakening of the head of the Kremlin.
Since then, and according to the most recent reports, groups of mercenaries have been arriving daily in Belarus as part of an agreement to avoid trials for rebellion in Russia.
Mercenaries who decide to stay and fight in Ukraine will be forced to join the regular Russian army in exchange for a pardon.
Source: DN
