About 40,000 prisoners recruited by the Wagner mercenary group have been killed, deserted, injured or arrested in Ukraine, the Russian prisoners’ rights organization Rus Sidiaschaya (RS) reported on Monday.
“About 10,000 (prisoners) are fighting on the front lines, as the rest have been killed, wounded, disappeared, deserted or surrendered,” said Olga Románova, director of RS.
According to this organization, the desertions in the ranks of the mercenaries, who took with them the weapons provided by their group, began in a massive way from the summer.
According to Románova, most of these mercenaries fled from the Ukrainian front to Russia, as evidenced by some incidents between policemen and recruited convicts.
Justifying the recruitment in Russian prisons, the leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigojine, replied that it is better to be mercenaries or sentenced to fight in Ukraine than children of Russians who criticize them.
The White House announced this Friday that the United States will impose new sanctions against the Wagner Group, for its involvement in the conflict in Ukraine, for which it will be considered a “transnational criminal organization.”
White House Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the United States will also sanction those who support that group on “several continents.”
Prigojine reacted to the US sanctions announcement by saying that “in the end, Wagner and the US will be colleagues.”
“Our relations from now on can be defined as ‘disputes between criminal clans,’” explained the leader of the mercenary group.
The military offensive launched on February 24, 2022 by Russia in Ukraine has so far caused the flight of more than 14 million people -6.5 million internally displaced persons and almost eight million to European countries-, according to the latest data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion – justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin as the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security – was condemned by the wider international community, which has responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing Russia from the political point of view and economic sanctions.
Source: TSF
