Russia is sending imprisoned women to work in the occupied regions of eastern Ukraine, a Russian human rights activist said.
Statements made on March 13 by Olga Romanova, head of an organization that advocates for Russian prisoners, confirm other reports from Ukrainian military officials who have said female prisoners have been seen in parts of Ukraine.
The Russian government has not commented on these reports.
Russia’s use of prisoners in its invasion of Ukraine – now in its thirteenth month – has been well documented. Many fighters fighting for the private mercenary company Wagner are prisoners who have been offered amnesty or reduced sentences in exchange for fighting in Ukraine.
Wagner said last month that he had stopped recruiting prisoners, while the Russian Ministry of Defense has reportedly launched its own recruitment campaign in Russian prisons.
On March 13, the General Staff of the Ukrainian army said that a train with prisoners was seen in the Donetsk region. One of the train carriages was filled only with women.
Speaking to the investigative website IStories, Romanova said she heard about such measures last year when women prisoners were taken from prisons in southern Russia. According to her, close to 100 women have been sent to Ukraine.
Earlier, Romanova had stated that the recruitment of prisoners by the Ministry of Defense is taking place in at least two prisons in the central Volgograd and southern Kemerovo regions. It is unclear whether the prisoners being recruited are mostly men, or if there are also women.
In December last year, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigizhin published a letter he had sent to a lawmaker from the central Sverdlovsk region. The lawmaker said that a group of prisoners had asked to be sent to Ukraine to work as health workers and in other fields.
The authenticity of this letter has not been confirmed.
Western officials have said Wagner used the prisoners in the ongoing campaign to seize control of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Ukrainian soldiers have faced constant attacks and Western officials have said tens of thousands of prisoners may have been killed in Russian efforts to take the city.
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