About 40,000 prisoners recruited by the Wagner mercenary group have died, defected, been injured or arrested in Ukraine, Russian prisoners’ rights organization Ross Sedyachaya said on Friday.
About 10,000 (prisoners) fighting on the front line, as well The rest were killed, wounded, disappeared, fled, or surrenderedsaid Olga Romanova, director of RS.
According to this organization, desertion from the ranks of the mercenaries, who took with them the weapons provided by their group, began en masse after the summer.
According to Romanova, most of these mercenaries fled from the Ukrainian front towards Russia, as evidenced by some incidents between police and conscript convicts.
When justifying the recruitment from Russian prisons, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin replied that it is better to be mercenaries or doomed to fight in Ukraine than to be the children of the Russians they criticize.
The White House announced, on Friday, that the United States will impose new sanctions on the Wagner Group, due to its involvement in the conflict in Ukraine, so would be considered a “transnational criminal organization”.
White House Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the United States would also sanction those who support this group on “various continents.”
Prigogine responded to the US sanctions announcement by saying, “Finally, Wagner and the United States will be colleagues.”. The leader of the mercenary group explained, “Our relations from now on can be defined as ‘disputes between criminal clans.'”
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