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Mar 16 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
NEW: We spent the last few weeks identifying ~30 Wagner convict fighters who returned from Ukraine and received their pardons. Five agreed to talk to us. What resulted is the most detailed insider account of Wagner's prisoner army yet published @Reuters

reuters.com/investigates/s…
The men who spoke to us said they joined Wagner for various reasons: some for money, some for the pardon, some out of patriotism. Some said prison officers tried to talk them out of joining.

reuters.com/investigates/s…
After a 2-3 week training course, the men we spoke to were off to the front. One man, a convicted kidnapper, said that it was already “absolutely clear” during training which of his convict comrades were going to die once they got to Ukraine.

reuters.com/investigates/s…
Most of the men we interviewed said they fought around Bakhmut, which one described as “utter hell”. Only one of them saw out their six month stints - the rest were wounded, and invalided out. One made it only four days on the frontline.

reuters.com/investigates/s…
Now either back home, or in hospital, the fighters we spoke to all agree on two things: they are deeply personally loyal to Yevgeny Prigozhin, who they credit with getting a second chance at life, and they all intend to stay with Wagner.

reuters.com/investigates/s…
Re-upping our previous story on the convict fighters who didn’t make it back home.

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More from @felix_light

Felix Light Profile picture
Jan 26
NEW: together with @reuters colleagues, I spent the last month reconstructing the lives of dozens of convicts who joined the Wagner mercenary army and who were killed in Ukraine. A window onto the grim reality of Russian prison life.

reuters.com/investigates/s…
Many, if not most, of the dead evoke little sympathy: a hitman who killed his victim for $5k; a career criminal who cut a woman’s throat in a drunken row; a baby-faced 25 y-o who killed a man by beating him unconscious and setting him on fire.

reuters.com/investigates/s…
But others were tragic figures: a 60 year old, jailed for stealing $80 of DIY equipment. He joined Wagner despite having only months left in jail, and without telling his wife. She told us he probably did it because of his credit cards debts.

reuters.com/investigates/s…
Read 6 tweets
Felix Light Profile picture
Feb 25, 2022
File under revolutions eating their own: Tatiana Yumasheva, Boris Yeltsin’s daughter and one of the key people instrumental in choosing her dad’s successor in 1999, is against the war.
ex-wife of Putin press secretary Dmitry Peskov against war:

znak.com/2022-02-25/vnu…

missed this: Yeltsin's granddaughter, Tatiana Yumasheva's daughter has attended an anti-war protest.

It's in London, of course
Read 4 tweets

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