At the beginning of the war with Ukraine, Moscow was forced to recruit short-term prisoners. Currently, the main source of replenishment for the army will be regular recruitment under contract.

This was reported by the Ministry of Defense of Great Britain on Twitter.

As indicated in the summary, an investigation by the BBC Russian Service showed that since September 2023, Russian military forces have stopped recruiting prisoners on short-term contracts.

Prisoners are currently offered standardized (long-term) contracts for military service, which involve agreeing to serve in the army for a minimum of the duration of the partial mobilization order until September 2022.

According to British intelligence, short-term contracts with prisoners sparked some public controversy in Russia, especially regarding the repeated crimes of returning prisoners and the short service of prisoners compared to mobilized reservists with an indefinite term of service.

"It is highly likely that short-term prisoner recruitment was a response to immediate military recruitment pressures earlier in the conflict. In 2023, the Russian state highly likely turned to regularised contract recruitment as the primary source of new military personnel," the Ministry of Defense of Britain noted.