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1/ The reportedly ongoing forcible recruitment of Russian soldiers into the Wagner Group is causing a scandal in the Far Eastern region of Yakutia, with the region's leadership and political representatives petitioning the Ministry of Defence to take action. ⬇️ 
2/ Dozens of mobilised Russians have reportedly been told to sign contracts with the Wagner Group and become mercenaries. Some have refused despite being pressured to sign at gunpoint.
https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1646451119986470913
3/ In the latest case, Wagner is said to have forcibly recruited six mobilised soldiers from Yakutia in the Russian Far East and sent them to Bakhmut. Yakutian State Duma deputy Fyodor Tumusov writes in his Telegram channel:
4/ "I have received an appeal regarding six mobilised Yakutians who, as it appears from the appeal, have been assigned to the 3rd Army Corps' Veteran PMC unit and the Wagner PMC without their consent. All of them were sent to the town of Bakhmut.
5/ "One of the mobilised men managed to report that their phones had been confiscated.
I was asked to take immediate action and look into the situation.
I was asked to take immediate action and look into the situation.
6/ "I immediately sent a parliamentary enquiry to Defence Minister Shoigu and asked our faction member Yana Valeryevna Lantratova, who had been appointed by President Vladimir Putin to the working group on cooperation between public authorities and organisations on issues of…
7/ …mobilisation, social and legal protection of Russian citizens taking part in the Special Military Operation and their family members. I requested that she use her own channels to look into the matter.
8/ "Then I approached Colonel General Andrey Valeryevich Kartapolov, Chairman of the State Duma Defence Committee, with this question. He said that this cannot be and that he would definitely look into it.
9/ "Appeals have also been sent from the leadership of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) to the Military Prosecutor's Office and the Russian Defence Ministry on this matter, asking them to look into the facts."
10/ A relative of one of the men, Stepan Nazarov, says that Stepan and his comrades "were forced by threats to sign a new contract, and in fact they became Wagnerians and not the Russian military.
11/ "At first they did not resent it much but then they were explicitly told that they would be sent to the most dangerous areas."
12/ Yakutia's Deputy Prime Minister, Olga Balabkina, writes on her own Telegram channel that she has received a similar appeal from families "about the inclusion of their relatives without their consent in the detachments of private military companies."
13/ She says that "the leadership of the Republic [of Yakutia] sent appeals to the Military Prosecutor's Office, [and] the Ministry of Defence of Russia with a request to investigate".
14/ Radio Free Europe comments that the "Veteran PMC" "probably refers to the so-called "Separate Diversionary Assault Brigade 'Veterans'", which gathers participants in the 2014-2015 war in Donbas."
15/ It's unclear why and how Wagner is able to forcibly enlist Russian Army soldiers. Other men reportedly being coerced to join a Wagner-linked mercenary group are said to have been hidden from military investigators.
https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1648231091952660481
16/ Wagner's head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has responded by publicly denying that his organisation is forcibly recruiting soldiers.
"There has never been a single case of forced inclusion in the Wagner PMC, that is the first thing.
"There has never been a single case of forced inclusion in the Wagner PMC, that is the first thing.
17/ "Secondly, no active military personnel are accepted to the Wagner PMC, it is simply impossible. Therefore, the reported information is nonsense. If necessary, let's confront them – who, when and what was offered to sign.
18/ "It is possible that there are some scammers [involved], but we will deal with this in the strictest way, as they say."
19/ This suggests that there's some degree of internal conflict within the army about Wagner forcibly taking its men. The fact that it has now become the subject of political protests may make the scheme too controversial to continue. /end
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