The prisoners recruited by Prigozhin, who survived the war against Ukraine, began to return home. They are promised big payouts and freedom, but experts doubt that they will have a fun life.
Journalists interviewed human rights activists, lawyers, lawyers, relatives of recruited prisoners and prisoners.
The prisoners who returned from the front are not waiting at home
Dozens of survivors of the first assault squads of prisoners this month began to trickle back to Russia with medals and documents that Wagner claims give them freedom. Experts noted that this could present Russian society with the challenge of reintegrating thousands of traumatized men with military training, a criminal record and little job prospects.
These are psychologically broken people who return with a sense of righteousness, believing that they killed to protect their homeland. These can be very dangerous people,” said Yana Gelmel, a Russian prisoner rights lawyer.
Lawyers are wondering if these prisoners are really “free”
PPK “Wagner” reported that mobilized prisoners are given papers for pardon or removal of convictions. However, none of these documents have been made public, raising questions about their legitimacy. Human rights activists say the pardon is a rare, time-consuming and complex legal procedure that has never been used in Russia on the scale Wagner advertises.
According to the Russian Constitution, only Putin can issue clemency decrees. However, the Kremlin has not disclosed such decrees since 2020. According to the Kremlin, in 2021 the dictator pardoned only 6 people. Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov reported that ordinary Wagner prisoners were pardoned “in strict accordance with Russian law.” However, he declined to comment further, citing the procedure as a state secret.
There are public decrees and decrees with varying degrees of secrecy,” he said.
Under Russian law, all requests for clemency are reviewed by specialized regional committees before they reach the Kremlin. However, two members of such commissions told reporters that they had not received any such statements. Human rights activists say that the ambiguous legal status of the returned prisoners undermines the Russian justice system and links their fate to Wagner.
Pay attention. Journalists found many relatives of prisoners who were sent to the front. It turned out thataccording to the documents they never went to war, they were simply transferred to Russian prisons near the Ukrainian border.
26-year-old conscript wants to go back to prison
26-year-old Siberian orphan Igor Matyukhin was serving his third term in the remote Krasnoyarsk Territory when Prigozhin came to them and offered them freedom in exchange for service. Inspired by the chance for a new life, Matyukhin immediately signed up. A few days later he was already in a training camp near occupied Luhansk. According to him, what he saw there was “very different from the patriotic group of brothers” that he expected to see.
Matyukhin described the atmosphere of fear that the “Wagnerites” instilled in the convicts so that they would go to fight. Mobilized convicts were threatened with executions for desertion or at least a request to return to the colony. When the training camp where Matyukhin was located was attacked by the UAF, he took the opportunity to escape and began to hide. He said that since then he has been trying to return to his prison in Russia.
However, there are those who are rushing back to “defend the Motherland” and because “civilian life is boring”.
