"Russia Recruits 1,500 Violent Criminals as Soldiers"…Ukraine Frontline Faces Worsening Troop Shortages

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunwoo Lee] It has been reported that Russia is attempting to recruit 1,500 prisoners convicted of heinous crimes as soldiers by mobilizing a mercenary company and dispatching them to the Ukrainian battlefield. This is being evaluated as a signal that the shortage of troops is becoming very severe as the war situation worsens and casualties increase significantly.

According to CNN on the 19th (local time), a senior U.S. Department of Defense official who requested anonymity stated at a press conference that "According to the information we have gathered, Russia is attempting to recruit over 1,500 convicted felons through the private mercenary company Wagner Group and send them to the Ukrainian battlefield," adding, "However, many prisoners are refusing to join the mercenaries."

A video was also released showing Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin who leads the Wagner Group, giving a speech to prisoners in what appears to be a prison yard. The BBC explained, "It has been confirmed that the man in the video is Prigozhin," and "The speech is believed to have taken place in the Mari El Republic in central-western Russia." However, the authenticity of the video is not precisely verified.

The Wagner Group is a private mercenary company that has operated unofficially since its establishment in 2014 to support pro-Russian separatist forces fighting government troops in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. It has been active not only on the Ukrainian front but also in Syria and African regions, and there have been allegations that it received weapons directly supplied by the Russian military.

As it is known that the Wagner Group is accepting even convicted felons as combatants, it is assessed that Russia’s personnel losses on the Ukrainian front are correspondingly severe. So far, U.S. and Western intelligence agencies estimate that the Russian military has suffered at least 70,000 to 80,000 casualties on the Ukrainian front.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.