According to The New York Times, “President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to allow a mercenary group to recruit Russian convicts in support of his flagging war effort marks a watershed in his 23-year rule, say human rights activists and legal experts. The policy circumvents Russian legal precedent and, by returning some brutalized criminals to their homes with pardons, risks triggering greater violence throughout society, underlining the cost Mr. Putin is prepared to pay to avoid defeat. … In some videos, the inmates are given papers described as pardons or annulments of convictions. However, none of these documents have been made public, raising questions about their legitimacy. Rights advocates say pardons are rare, time-consuming and complex legal procedures that have never been issued in Russia on anywhere near the scale advertised by Wagner.”
Apparently, the convicts are suckers and don’t understand their own dictator very well. Do these “patriots” really think they’ve been pardoned through their “service” in Russia’s military? Give me a break! First of all, they technically never served in the Russian army. Basically, these convicts are hired guns to wage war in Ukraine on behalf of the Wagner Group, which happens to be employed by Russia, so there is immediately at least one, if not two, degree of separation. Second, these “former” fighters returning to Russia are merely escaped convicts who have not been recaptured yet. Do these people honestly think they can return to life as usual? Hell f***ing no! Once caught, they go back to the front lines, repeating the cycle until they are killed.