According to new information, Putin released violent felons in order to increase troop numbers in Ukraine.
Last year, 33-year-old Vadim Tekhov was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the savage murder of his ex-wife, Regina Gagieva.
However, footage of him being apprehended by police in November 2022 revealed that he had been freed early to fight with a “special regiment” of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.
Tekhov, a former police officer, confronted the mother of his child in a store in Vladikavkaz, Russia, because he suspected that she was having text exchanges with other men.
When Ms. Gagieva refused to unlock her phone for Tekhov, he stabbed her in the neck and upper body multiple times.
Gagieva died in the hospital, and Tekhov was incarcerated after it was revealed that his ex-wife had filed multiple domestic violence complaints with the authorities.
Last year, the tale was extensively published in Russia, provoking popular outrage.
Tekhov’s existence among hundreds of murderers freed to boost the Russian army was only revealed after he was re-arrested on suspicion of drug offenses, amid allegations that he meant to distribute drugs to other soldiers.
Tekhov alleges in a video of his interrogation that he was jailed for intoxication.
According to reports, as many as 35,000 prisoners have now been released for the fight.
Mediazona, an independent Russian news outlet, revealed yesterday that the number of convicts in Russian penal colonies dropped by 23,000 between September and October, as Putin sought to recruit fresh soldiers to help his war effort.
Putin signed a new law authorizing the Russian government to conscript convicted criminals on November 6.
The magazine observes that the decrease in prison population “occurs against the backdrop of the recruiting of inmates to participate in the conflict in the detachments of the Wagner PMC, which function fully outside the judicial system.”
Since July, rumors have centered on the mercenary Wagner Group’s purported recruiting of inmates.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the 61-year-old head of the Wagner Group and a Russian businessman, was filmed in September promising a pardon to violent criminals and sex offenders locked up in a Russian prison if they survived six months of combat in Ukraine.
According to Russian law, convicts cannot be released in exchange for military duty.
Prigozhin advised prisoners to commit suicide rather than be arrested in Ukraine, instructing them to hold one grenade for the enemy and one for themselves.
He had previously denied any connection to Wagner, which is reported to have already recruited thousands of detainees as Russia deploys its most dangerous criminals as warriors.
Instead of Wagner, Tekhov and other imprisoned law enforcement professionals, including FSB operatives (the successor to the KGB), are reportedly being recruited into a regular army regiment.
Previous Russian wars have relied on the country’s enormous jail population for funding.
During the 1942 Russian counteroffensive against Nazi Germany, Soviet leader Josef Stalin utilized Penal Battalions (‘Shtrafbats’) consisting of non-professional criminals.
Stalin employed ‘blocking detachments’ until October 1942 to prevent criminals from advancing while shooting defectors.