'Wagner Group promised pardons for convicts ... then buried them in Russian graveyard'
Wagner Group promised pardons for convicts who survived six months fighting in Ukraine then buried them in Russian graveyard
Late last summer, a plot of land on the edge of a small farming community in southern Russia began to fill with scores of newly dug graves of fighters killed in Ukraine.
The resting places were adorned with simple wooden crosses and brightly coloured wreaths that bore the insignia of Russia's Wagner Group, a feared and secretive private army.
Many of the men buried at Bakinskaya were convicts who were recruited by Wagner last year after its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, promised prisoners a pardon if they survived six months at the front, this reporting showed.
They included a contract killer, murderers, career criminals and people with alcohol problems.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-28/russia-ukraine-wagner-group-prisoner-army/101898826
Russia's prison population decreased by more than 28,000 between August and November 2022.
