Russia Using 'Expendable' Convict Recruits to Protect Wagner Troops: U.K.

In the battle for Bakhmut, Russia is deploying convict recruits assessed as "expendable" to protect more experienced commanders from the notorious mercenary outfit the Wagner Group, according to Britain's Ministry of Defence.

The U.K. ministry in its daily intelligence update on the war in Ukraine on Monday gave an overview of the intensifying battle for the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. It claimed that Russia's Wagner Group continues to take a major role in attritional combat.

In recent months, the military proxy group founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has developed offensive tactics to make use of the large number of poorly trained convicts it has recruited, the report said.

As Russia seeks to take control of Bakhmut, the mercenary outfit is employing "brutal tactics" to conserve its "rare assets of experienced commanders and armoured vehicles."

This is at the expense of the more "readily available convict-recruits," which the organization assesses as expendable, the British defense ministry said.

These tactics likely include issuing individual Wagner Group fighters with a smart phone or tablet that shows their designated axis of advance and assault objective superimposed on commercial satellite imagery.

Meanwhile, at platoon level and above, commanders likely remain shielded and give orders over radios, informed by video feeds from small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the defense ministry said.

"Individuals and sections are ordered to proceed on the preplanned route, often with fire-support, but less often alongside armoured vehicles," the report said, adding that Wagner operatives who deviate from their assault routes without authorization are likely being threatened with summary execution.

The battle for Bakhmut, led by Wagner Group fighters, ramped up after Russian troops withdrew from the city of Kherson last month. Capturing the region would provide the Russian army with a morale boost following a string of military defeats elsewhere in Ukraine.

The Wagner Group has been recruiting large numbers of prisoners for Putin's war in Ukraine. The mercenary unit has been recruiting in penal colonies in far-flung regions of Russia, according to Olga Romanova, head of the prisoner advocacy group Russia Behind Bars.

Russian independent news outlet MediaZona reported last month that amid a recruitment drive by the Wagner Group, the number of male convicts in Russian prisons across the country decreased by 23,000 in the space of two months. The news outlet cited data from Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service.

Responding to the findings, the National Resistance Center of Ukraine said on December 13 that these prisoners are being used by Russia "as a meat shield."

"The reason is that their death does not resonate in Russian society and therefore allows Russians not to think about losses," it said. "At the same time, these losses do not demoralise Wagner Group, because the qualified staff and management did not participate in the assault."

Newsweek reached out to the Russian foreign ministry for comment.

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