Russia continues to recruit criminals and send them to war in Ukraine. However, the number of mobilized prisoners begins to decrease.

Olga Romanova, a human rights activist and founder of the Russian charitable organization Sitting Rus, told Channel 24 about this. She is convinced that the Russian Ministry of Defense and private military campaigns simply cannot control the prisoners, so there is practically no point in them at the front.

Romanova said that since February 1, Yevgeny Prigozhin was banned from recruiting prisoners in Russia.

I understand that now he is rolling back to Africa. That is, in the position where he was a year ago, – the speaker noted.

The Ministry of Defense cannot control “convicts”

Despite the fact that now the Russian Ministry of Defense is quite successfully recruiting prisoners to the Shturm battalion, however, it turned out that they simply do not know how to manage this specific contingent.

Prigozhin, as a former criminal, understood the method of communicating with them and, probably, passed this on to his commanders.

The Russian Ministry of Defense, thank God, is stupid, lazy and corrupt, they behave the same way in prisons, they just don’t come there,” the journalist added.

She said that the Russian security forces simply do not want to travel around the country and communicate with “convicts”. Now the recruitment is still going on, but the enthusiasm has waned.

Romanova about the recruitment of prisoners in Russia: watch the video

Prisoners refuse to follow orders

According to Romanova, the prisoners agree to go to the front, seeing this as the only way to get out of prison, because conditions there are getting worse every day. There are constant beatings, rapes, etc.

The activist said that by February 1, 2023, about 50,000 prisoners had been recruited, and in February and March, just over a thousand left for the war.

In addition, the recruited prisoners began to scatter, in Donetsk and Luhansk temporary detention centers were overcrowded. The reason for the refusal to fight is the Russian command. People who have spent most of their lives in prisons and have a lot of criminal experience do not want to obey the orders of twenty-year-old graduates of military schools.

Prisons are hunted by other PVKs

There is another important problem with the recruitment of prisoners, Romanova said. Russian prisons now came from other private military campaigns.

Prior to this, Prigozhin maintained his monopoly, and now the Patriot PMC associated with Sergei Shoigu and the more dangerous PMC of the oligarch Igor Altushkin and Oleg Deripaska are hunting there.

Putin will meet with Russian oligarchs one of these days and will talk about this as well. Private military campaigns are still banned in Russia, but Putin himself encourages them,” the human rights activist said.

However, this does not negate the fact that they also do not know how to work with a specific contingent. Romanova omitted that they “dangle a little in prisons and will come out to recruit from freedom.”

According to her, now the Ministry of Defense and the PIK, which have not coped with the criminals, will simply go on the hunt for someone's parents and children.

“Then we will see if the mood will change. I think not, because Russia is swollen and limp, it is now an immobilized carcass,” the speaker noted.

Criminals are not prepared for war

Romanova said that from her conversations with the Ukrainian military, it can be concluded that the Wagnerites are still different from the Russian mobilized. They do not spare their lives and dealing with them is even more unpleasant than with the mobilized.

It is also known that before sending 2 weeks of criminals were trained very hard in the Rostov region.

Now the Ministry of Defense does not prepare the prisoners for war in any way and immediately sends them to the assault. – the journalist emphasized.

This is seen by all subsequent arrivals there, and they no longer want to be fertilizer for the Ukrainian land. Therefore, it is very difficult to talk about the effectiveness of these units in the war, Romanova concluded.