The owner of the Wagner Group, Russian oligarch Yevgeni Prigozhin, has assured Thursday that the recruitment of mercenaries in Russian prisons has been stopped with a view to sending them to conflict zones, including Ukraine.
«The recruitment of prisoners by the Wagner Group has been completely stopped,» Prigozhin said, according to statements published by his press service via his Telegram account. «All obligations to those who work for us are fulfilled,» he has settled.
UK intelligence services noted last week that the Wagner Group had in recent weeks slowed the pace of recruitment of prisoners to add to the conflict in Ukraine, unleashed on February 24, 2022 on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Specifically, if the Russian prison services reported between September and November a drop of 23,000 people in the prison population, between November and January the figure has dropped to about 6,000. The UK Intelligence services consider that the Wagner Group plays a key role.
The Wagner Group, which has deployed mercenaries in several African countries in recent years, has been involved in some of the most significant advances by pro-Moscow forces in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, even claiming credit for area conquests before the Russian government has even publicly confirmed them.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
