In Russia, the third wave of recruitment of prisoners to participate in the war against Ukraine has already begun.

Of the first thousand prisoners recruited by the Wagner Group to participate in the war against Ukraine, only 20 have returned home, Olga Romanova, head of the Rus Seated NGO, said in an interview with Current Time.

According to her, the third wave of recruitment of prisoners into the "Wagner group" is now underway in Russia. The first wave went in the prisons of central Russia from June 26 to September 21, the second - in the Urals and the Far East from September 21 to the end of December. The third one has begun, covering the whole country, including Chechnya.

“Naturally, for Prigozhin, there is also a convenience in the fact that there is actually no extradition from Chechnya. There he can do some things that he cannot do in the Ryazan region, in the Smolensk region or somewhere else. This is actually extraterritorial education. Therefore, recruitment began in Chechen prisons,” Romanova said.

According to the human rights activist, about 40 thousand Russian prisoners have been recruited into the "Wagner group" for all time. However, only a few return home.

"I think that they do not count the number of dead - nothing. I think there is no one there. But let's look at the results of the first recruitment. In the very first days of July, about a thousand people were recruited from the Leningrad and Novgorod regions in the zones but returned 20. Look at the statistics,” she said.