Authorities in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk area plan to shut a number of prisons this yr amid a decline in inmate numbers pushed by recruitment of convicts for the Ukraine struggle, the Kommersant newspaper reported on Thursday.
Kommersant cited Mark Denisov, Krasnoyarsk’s regional human rights commissioner, as telling the regional legislature that not less than two native prisons can be closed because of “a big one-time discount within the variety of convicts within the context of the particular navy operation [in Ukraine].”
Russia has recruited prisoners to battle in Ukraine since 2022, when Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late head of the Wagner mercenary group, started touring penal colonies, providing prisoners a pardon in the event that they survived six months on the entrance.
Prisoner recruitment operations
Prigozhin, who was killed in a airplane crash shortly after main a short-lived mutiny in opposition to Russia’s navy leaders, stated he had recruited 50,000 prisoners for Wagner.
Knowledge revealed by Russia’s penal service on the time confirmed sudden drops within the nation’s jail inhabitants. Russia’s Defence Ministry has since continued recruiting convicts from prisons for its personal Storm-Z formations.
