Wagner Group Now Recruiting Russian Gamers To Fly Drones Into Ukraine

The Wagner Group of mercenaries is actively recruiting video gamers to boost its ranks amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The private military company, headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, has suffered heavy losses in Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as it spearheaded efforts to capture Bakhmut in the Donetsk oblast.

To replenish some of those numbers Wagner is taking a broad approach to assessing the skills of future candidates.

On Monday, an advertisement, posted on the Vkontakte social media site and reported by the independent news outlet Vertska, called for specialists in the management of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones.

Recruits need to be aged between 21 and 35, be in good physical shape and have good computer knowledge.

Additional pluses were those with experience with simulators using joysticks, as well as gamers "who sit straight playing for hours." Wagner was looking for those with a "desire to study new specialties and work around the world."

The advertisement said that "participation in the special military operation is not obligatory," according to Verstka.

The news outlet posed as a candidate and, after contacting the recruiter, was asked standard questions about age, criminal record and diseases, as well as what kind of devices he would like to work on.

The fake candidate was told that there were "two types of UAVs, copters and more serious things." He was also asked if he preferred to work in Ukraine or in Africa, where Wagner also has a presence. The recruiter also said it was "not a problem" that the fake candidate did not have any military experience.

Wagner has recruited prisoners from jails in a deal in which convicts were offered the prospect of a pardon in exchange for signing a six-month contract.

Prigozhin announced in January that he would stop drafting prisoners, but the recruitment drive from jails is still being carried out by the Russian Defense Ministry which is offering amnesty in return for military service.

However, another report by Vertska, published on Monday, said that some of those serving in the MOD's Storm Z unit had committed violent crimes.

In May, pro-Kremlin media outlets reporting from the occupied part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region that visited the positions of Russia's 71st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment found that forward posts were occupied by ex-convicts serving in the Storm-Z unit.

The paper Argumenti y Fakty reported that the unit's deputy commander, with the call sign "Tambov," had been sentenced to 26 years for murdering a 91-year-old woman, and had been previously convicted of rape, which would have disqualified him from joining Wagner.

Oleg Panchurin, another deputy commander of the 71st Regiment, said the convicts' mindset "is more militarized than that of draftees" and that they have the "fog of killers in their eyes" and are "more pleasant to work with."

Wagner recruits and those with other "volunteer formations" must sign a contract with the Russian MOD by July 1.

Prigozhin has challenged this by issuing his own drafting contract, which British defense officials said on Tuesday was a "deliberate effort to undermine" the Russian military establishment with which he has repeatedly criticized.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.