On April 27th, the Gulagu.net project released a report that representatives of the Defense Ministry had visited penal colonies in 15 regions, where they may have attempted to recruit prisoners.
According to a recent report by the Gulagu.net project, representatives from the Defense Ministry visited colonies located in 15 regions, including Sakhalin, Tyumen, Kaluga, Saratov, Bryansk, Rostov, Ryazan, Tomsk, Tula, Vladimir, Tver, Ulyanovsk, Buryatia, Chuvashia, and Mordovia. It is believed that during their visits, they may have attempted to recruit prisoners for fighting in Ukraine.
Sources report that in some colonies, prisoners could fill out documents and immediately write applications for pardon. In a Tula colony, 300 individuals were allegedly forced to sign contracts against their will. In Mordovia, colony employees are said to have resorted to psychological pressure, humiliation, and poor nutrition to convince prisoners to go to war.
In February 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin announced that he had been "suspended" from recruiting prisoners for the Wagner PMC. Olga Romanova, the head of the "Sitting Russia" movement, believes that representatives from the Defense Ministry may now be recruiting convicts for military purposes.
On April 9th, 7x7 was informed by a reader that their relative, who was serving a sentence in a penal colony in Yekaterinburg, was told that prisoners would be sent to the Luhansk and Donetsk regions to participate in city rebuilding efforts.