(NewsInsights.org) – As the war in Ukraine decimated Russia’s more seasoned military troops, Kremlin leaders began looking for alternatives. One option included using the Wagner Group, a mercenary corps developed by Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Wagner Group introduced another alternative. The organization began recruiting prisoners from Russia’s penal system in the summer of 2022. Even murderers could receive pardons in exchange for fighting six months on the front lines for Mother Russia.
Not everyone is on board with the policy, however. Victims’ families often see the bargain as unjust, according to The Guardian. Additionally, violent criminals who survive the six-month contract and return home to their communities are arguably less rehabilitated and more of a danger to those communities.
In one high-profile example, Russia recruited convicted murderer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former police detective who participated in the 2006 murder of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, a scathing critic of the Kremlin. He received a 20-year sentence in 2014. In 2022, the government offered him a six-month contract to fight on the front lines in Ukraine. If he survived, he would receive a presidential pardon from Russian President Vladimir Putin, commuting the remainder of his sentence. Not only did Khadzhikurbanov survive his prison contract, but he signed a second contract as a military recruit after receiving his pardon.
Noyava Gazeta, the publication that Politkovskaya reported for, and her children, son Ilya and daughter Vera, claimed the government never informed them of Khadzhikurbanov’s contract or pardon. In a joint statement, they said they saw “no evidence of redemption [or] remorse” that warranted a pardon for the murder he committed, according to the BBC. They called the situation a “desecration of the memory of a person killed for her convictions.”
Yet, they aren’t suffering alone. Russian media reported that the government had pardoned notorious murderer Vladislav Kanyus, allowing him to return to society after fulfilling a six-month prisoner contract fighting in Ukraine. The media attention caused Putin to face some backlash, with people asking why he would pardon a man who killed his 23-year-old girlfriend after cruelly torturing her for hours while she screamed and howled for help.
It seems the practice of offering pardons for prisoner contracts is too expedient to abandon when the Kremlin needs to replace troops.
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