The Tail Wagging The Dog

With the news that Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who is heavily linked to the founders of the notorious Russian Wagner Group of mercenaries, and also a crony of President Putin ...

Yevgeniy Prigozhin aka 'The Chef', Started As Putin's Cook

.... was filmed recruiting Russian convicts from Prisons to fight for 6 months in the Ukraine (in return for their sentences being commuted), a lot of people's perception of the Russian army have been confirmed.

He's seen telling inmates that he is a "representative of a private war company. Perhaps you heard the name - Wagner Group," he says. He seems to confirm (and captures in the Ukraine have verified) that prisoners have successfully been recruited and fought in battles ... He initially said that the recruited prisoners had stormed the Ukrainian trenches and attacked Kyiv's troops with knives. Three of the men - including a 52-year-old who spent more than 30 years in detention - were killed. There have since been many more of these prison battalion soldiers killed in human wave attacks in Bakhmut

However what I found interesting was that in the initial film of him recruiting, Mr Prigozhin was heard to tell the potential recruits ...

Yevgeniy Prigozhin Addressing 'The Troops'

"If you serve six months (in Wagner), you are free, nobody goes back behind bars" ... but what actually really peaked my interest was what he said next .... "if you arrive in Ukraine and decide it's not for you, we will execute you".

He also informed prisoners of the Wagner Group's strict disciplinary rules, which included the total banning of 'alcohol, and drugs,' and explicitly stating that there was no "sexual contacts with local women, flora, fauna, men - anything," allowed. Finally adding that they will be expected to kill themselves with hand grenades if they are at risk of being captured.

Which is apparently far tougher disciplinary rules than those in the mainstream Russian army ... where reports of torture, drunkenness, rape, murder and desertion, are regularly heard from the Ukraine.

When the video went public, Mr Prigozhin, said that if he were in prison he would "dream of" joining the Wagner group to "pay my debt to the Motherland" .... adding "It's either private military companies and prisoners, or your children - decide for yourself."

The reason that Russia is resorting to this illegal act (Russian law does not allow prisoners to be freed in exchange for military or mercenary service), is that its estimated that up to 60,000 Russian troops have been killed and 168,000 injured since the war began in February 2022, there have also been reports of conscripts deserting as well. However, these prisoners have taken heavy casualties for their 'freedom', with an estimated 6,000 Wagner fighters killed and may be 40,000 wounded to date.