Inmate Humiliates Russia's Shadow Army by Taking Cab Home

[Jilly_in_VA]

Prisoners recruited by Russia’s Wagner Group to fight in Ukraine seem to be increasingly realizing they’ve been duped, and that no one ever counted on bringing them back alive.

One inmate recruited by the group back in November has absconded from his team in Ukraine’s Luhansk region and fled to Russia by bus and ride-sharing app, where he says he is now hiding out in fear of revenge.

“We thought we’d be equal with the hired fighters, that we wouldn’t be any different, but in reality they just make assault teams out of the inmates, and that’s the meat [in the meat grinder]. But there’s already no going back there, if you refuse to do something they will immediately off you,” Nikolai Troshkin told the independent outlet MediaZona on Wednesday.

Troshkin said he had a couple years left to serve at a penal colony in Siberia when Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin visited in the fall and “colorfully” told prisoners about their chance for a pardon.

He bought into Prigozhin’s promises, he said, and was soon transported out along with nearly 200 other inmates from his colony.

“We signed a paper about who to notify in case of our death, and [stating] that I agree to take part in the military operation and fulfill the tasks of the Defense Ministry, despite the fact that I may die,” he said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-wagner-prison-fighter-used-ride-sharing-to-flee-war-in-ukraine?ref=home

[wnylib]

1. He would have been better off to surrender to the Ukrainian a.