Published on : 15/09/2022 – 16:53
Detainees aged 22 to 50 are offered freedom if they fight in Ukraine, but death if they flee. The Kremlin, however, denied earlier this week that there were prisoners sent to fight.
The video went viral. It shows a man identified as Evgueni Prigojine, the leader of the Wagner group, making this speech to prisoners dressed in black: “ Come fight in Ukraine and you will be rewarded with your freedom – if you can make it home alive “. He offers Russian prisoners to fight in a conflict he describes as much more difficult than the war waged by Russia in Chechnya and Afghanistan.
« I have two and a half times more ammunition than in Stalingrad. The first sin is to desert. Nobody falls. No one retreats. No one makes himself a prisoner, continues the man. During your training, you will be told regarding two grenades that you must have with you when you surrender. No one goes back to jail. You spend six months at the front and you return home, pardoned. Those who want to stay can. Those who change their mind on the first day, they are considered deserters and executed ».
The men have five minutes to make their choice. If they accept a deployment, prisoners must agree not to use drugs or alcohol. And they are forbidden to plunder and have sexual contact with local women, flora, fauna or men ».
Wagner’s mercenaries have already been linked to a massacre at Boutcha, where hundreds of civilians were found executed. A recent report accused them of war crimes in Africa where they were deployed to fight insurgencies in Mali and the Central African Republic.
► Read also : Documentary delves into the workings of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner