In total, by mid-October, the Russian Private Military Company (PCM) Wagner, which recruited prisoners for war in Ukraine, informed relatives of the deaths of at least 458 convicts. At the same time, according to the Important Stories’ estimates, the PMC led by Putin's close confidant Yury Prigozhin, had recruited nearly 6,000 prisoners by the end of September, and at least 2,036 of them had been transported to the frontline by that time. It means that the Ukrainian Armed Forces eliminated about a quarter of the Russian criminals who made it to the front.
Between September 18 and October 13, The Ukrainian Center for Researching and Combating Hybrid Threats discovered and verified more than two hundred letters signed by Andrei Troshev (one of the leaders of the Wagner PMC) with condolences to the families of Prigozhin mercenaries recruited in Russian penal colonies. The letters are accompanied by a posthumous Medal of Honor, and the documents themselves (as published
on social media by relatives) are accurately numbered, which helps us estimate their quantity, The Insider reports.
