From prison and from war: how Ukrainian prisoners are mobilized

Thousands of criminals choose to move from prison barracks to the trenches on the front line. Recruiters race to recruit them into their combat brigades.

In the month that has passed since the beginning of the mobilization of convicts, every ninth of about 27 thousand prisoners in Ukrainian correctional colonies was released early “for direct participation in the defense of the country.” True, “freedom” is not quite the right word for these three thousand men: under the escort of the National Guard, those released are first taken to the nearest military registration and enlistment office to sign a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and from there to training grounds. There, yesterday's criminals will be forged into future stormtroopers, and then sent to the front line - probably until the end of the war.

A long-awaited opportunity for prisoners to go to the front

From the first days of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, many of them asked to go to the front - from the prison administration, the department of criminal punishments of the Ministry of Justice, deputies and human rights activists. However, previously the law prohibited those sentenced to imprisonment or even a suspended sentence from serving in the army.

In exceptional cases, President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, by separate decrees, pardoned imprisoned ATO veterans - in 2022 there were 363 such people. Several hundred more people, whose cases had not yet been considered by the courts, were released into barracks from pre-trial detention centers in the first months after the invasion. But then the mobilization of prisoners stopped.

“Then in Russia Prigozhin (Evgeny Prigozhin, founder of the private military company Wagner. - Ed.) had just begun recruiting repeat offenders into Wagner in zones. Then there was their Ministry of Defense with “Storm Z” (assault detachments of the Russian army, which also consist mainly of prisoners. - Ed.) From a purely moral point of view, we could not afford to do something like that,” the head of the parliamentary committee on law enforcement issues Sergei Ionushas.

At the end of May 2024, in the sun-drenched courtyard of one of the correctional colonies in the Kiev region, he, along with other developers of long-awaited changes to military and criminal legislation, tells reporters about the first results of the mobilization of prisoners to the front. “In two weeks, we received 4,564 applications from convicts throughout the country. This is already more than we generally planned,” admits Deputy Minister of Justice Elena Vysotskaya.

Mobilization of prisoners: the army is not for everyone

The process of considering petitions from prisoners takes up to a week; on average, two out of five are satisfied. Prisoners with injuries, those with HIV or tuberculosis are screened out in the medical unit of the colony. Its administration determines whether the prisoner falls under the new conditions of early release.

We are talking primarily about the criminal offense he committed - after a heated debate, the deputies agreed not to accept into the army those convicted of crimes against national security, terrorism, the deliberate murder of two or more persons or an attempt on the life of a law enforcement officer or military man, a drunken traffic accident with a fatal outcome, sexual violence and especially serious corruption offences.

Personnel officers from individual brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are allowed to join those who have passed the initial selection. In conversations with DW, army personnel have repeatedly emphasized the fundamental difference between such meetings and mobilization in Russian prisons: they say that we are not agitating prisoners to go to war, but recruiting conscientious volunteers.

Having chosen a place for further service, the convicts undergo a standard military medical commission. Those who are eligible ultimately await a local court, which decides on early release. Hearings usually take a matter of minutes, with judges limiting themselves to a few questions to the prisoner via video link or even considering the case without him.

As of Tuesday, June 18, more than 2,800 decisions on consideration of such petitions, mostly positive, were published in the court registry. The very first case of 36-year-old Kharkov painter Alexander B. attracts attention with the irony of fate.

Convicted of evading mobilization to three years in prison, he appealed the verdict in the Supreme Court, but after a month in the Pervomaisk correctional colony No. 117, known for strict discipline and cruelty of the guards, he asked to join the army. On May 20, he was released early by the court and is already undergoing training at a training center.

Recruiters' tour of the colonies

“There are a lot of people in our country who should be in prison, but for some reason they are free. And there are many people in prison who should be free. The prison represents the usual average cross-section of the Ukrainian population,” philosophizes the commander of the second assault battalion of the Third Assault Brigade, Dmitry Kukharchuk. In the fall of 2021, he himself spent three months behind bars on suspicion of beating a police officer at a political rally.

On the last day of spring 2024, we meet under the walls of one of the correctional colonies in the Cherkasy region. Jumping out of a white SUV behind the 34-year-old battalion commander are a brigade psychologist, a videographer and a fighter, much older than the others, whose manner of communication reveals him to be an expert in criminal subculture and prison ethics. The recruiting group expects to recruit several dozen prisoners, who have usually been here for more than their first term.

“We actually arrived late. But, you know, at first they didn’t want to include the Third Assault in the list of brigades that could recruit prisoners,” Kukharchuk complains.

In the gazebo next to the entrance of the colony, two more military men are smoking in a simple, worn-out “pixel”. Personnel officers of the 28th mechanized brigade from the Odessa region are also on a recruiting tour of the colonies of central Ukraine. And they are also lagging behind - because they were also not included in the list of “brigades for prisoners.”

“Someone messed something up there, and our people are simply not allowed to see the prisoners. They say: recruit in your south,” complains the no longer young senior leader Viktor Lyakh. “Where can I get people if we have 15 people holding a kilometer of trench on the front end?!”

The leaders of this colony, it seems, are also not happy with the visit of the recruiters. After a short argument at the checkpoint, the military is eventually led to a meeting with potential fighters. DW correspondents, despite a preliminary agreement, are not allowed into the “zone.” “Understand, we are responsible for the safety of prisoners. As soon as the Russians see that they are recruiting for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the “martyrs” will immediately arrive,” the head of the colony justifies himself, making a promise not to mention its full name and location.

The question of prisoners' motivation

The recruiters return a few hours later, a little disappointed. Viktor Lyakh recruited 18 prisoners to join him. Dmitry Kukharchuk selected 17 people from 40 volunteers.

“If we had entered first, we would have scored more. I believe that the Third Assault has earned first priority because we are one of the few units that knows how to work with convicts and understands their psychology and morality,” notes Kukharchuk.

The moral and psychological state, readiness for war, and the motivation of the future fighter are more important than the burden of crimes of the past, the battalion commander assures. “The people we meet here in the colonies want them not to be ashamed to look their children in the eyes one day. They want to be able to say: during the war I was not in prison, but defended the country,” he adds.

The leader of the Cherkassy football ultras, Kukharchuk, stood at the origins of “Azov” - then still a right-wing radical volunteer battalion - and the political party “National Corps”. The internal culture of military brotherhood common to these movements was transferred to the Third Assault Brigade, the battalion commander believes. It is this that can quickly supplant criminal morality and re-educate even professional criminals, Kukharchuk is sure.

Where will former prisoners serve - together with others or in special forces?

Therefore, the Third Assault categorically rejects one of the requirements of the new law for organizing the service of former prisoners - that they must carry it out in separate special forces. “We will not do any fines, this is unacceptable. On the contrary, we have successful experience of spraying with mobilized people. A couple of people per squad, five or six per platoon - this is enough to replenish our ranks and safely integrate new recruits,” says Kukharchuk.

However, for example, in the Fifth Assault Brigade they plan to form a separate battalion of 600-800 people from former prisoners over the next few months. Perhaps even with their commanders from among the convicted officers. “We are extremely short of personnel. And, taking into account the new legislation, fresh mobilization from the TCC will have to wait. This way we will at least close the hole,” explains the deputy commander, who introduces himself simply as Vladislav.

A former prosecutor, he is, however, not inclined to perceive prison recruits as criminals escaping punishment. “We cooperate with those who are motivated. Who wants to fulfill their duty,” Vladislav convinces. At the same time, he realizes: the risk of yesterday’s prisoners escaping from a military unit is considerable, and there will be no one to catch them. Therefore, he promises to send the future battalion to such a difficult sector of the front, from where he himself “barely left in an armored car.”

23-year-old Kiev resident Vitaly Y. has already signed up for the Fifth Assault - one of the prisoners whom the colony leadership brought to a press conference with the authors of the law on the mobilization of convicts. In the fall of 2020, Lutsk police detained him with a large package of synthetic stimulants. The man claimed that he was only sending other people’s parcels by mail, but the court did not take into account his repentance and his newborn daughter and put him behind bars for seven years for selling a particularly large batch of drugs.

“I wanted to go to war even when the trial was going on, but they said they wouldn’t take me. Now, I’ve already served two years, but as soon as the law was passed, I wrote a statement. I understand: I will have to serve in the army until the end of the war. But it seems to me that it will still be better there than in prison,” Vitaly hopes in a conversation with DW.

Many prisoners are waiting

21-year-old archeology student from Cherkasy Igor Ts., also convicted of drug trafficking, is in no hurry to follow Vitaly’s example. “There are certain concerns,” he admits in a conversation with DW. — I would like to understand more about the conditions and what will happen next. See what will happen with the first wave of mobilization, and then make decisions based on this experience.” True, the man’s sentence was shorter - he was caught in petty drug trafficking and was given a little more than three years. In the colony, he works in the production of “dragon teeth” - concrete obstacles for defense lines - and thus hopes to earn the right to early release in a year.

Many convicts have taken a similar wait-and-see attitude due to the rather uncertain conditions of their future service, Oleg Tsvily, the head of the human rights organization “Defense of Prisoners of Ukraine,” shares collected feedback with DW. He spent two years lobbying to allow prisoners to join the military, but is now frustrated by the details of the law, which he believes was passed in haste. “Prisoners in a colony are like spiders in a jar. And they will most likely transfer all their conflicts, subcultural hierarchy and mutual hostility into these isolated special forces,” the human rights activist predicts.

Criminal subculture in Ukrainian prisons

According to Tsviloy, the criminal subculture of the so-called “thieves in law” still occupies an important place within the Ukrainian penitentiary system. In most colonies, it is the basis of self-government for convicts, existing in a precarious balance with the official regime of the administration. Its unwritten rules—“concepts” formed centuries ago—contain a clear ban on military service for “honest prisoners,” that is, professional criminals. The violation of this prohibition by part of the criminal underworld during World War II led to a bloody conflict within the Soviet Gulag, known as the "bitch war."

The current Russian aggression against Ukraine has also led to a conflict around old “concepts,” says Tsvily. Thieves in law - authoritative representatives of organized crime - have the right to interpret them in a specific situation through the so-called written “runs”. One of these “thieves,” Sergei Lysenko, known as Lera Sumskoy, who has been living abroad in recent years, at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, called on the Ukrainian criminals to defend the state. “He argued this with another norm - the duty of an “honest thief” to strike in response to an attack,” explains Oleg Tsvily.

However, the further participation of some thieves in law in the recruitment of Russian prisoners into the Wagner PMC and the Storm Z detachments was sharply criticized by other crime bosses, the specialized news agency Prime Crime reported, citing “run-throughs” common within the criminal world.

“Yesterday I told the boss at Belka: let me go see the ‘thief’ for 10 minutes, I’ll explain everything to him,” Dato, the same expert in criminal ethics from the Third Assault, tells DW. — So that the “run” will make prisoners fight for Ukraine. Where is it?...” After some interpretation, it becomes clear: we are talking about Belotserkovskaya colony No. 35, where 32-year-old Georgian citizen Giorgi Kiladze, a thief in law, known as Gega Ozurgetsky, is serving his sentence. Formally, Gega is perhaps the most authoritative prisoner in Ukraine, and his written instructions could influence many prisoners.

In February 2022, under the threat of a Russian offensive, the leadership of the Menskaya colony in the Chernihiv region released him and several dozen other convicts. Almost all of them immediately joined the terrorist defense units, but Kiladze was caught a few months later on the Romanian border and is being tried separately for escape.

The mobilization of convicts is resisted not only by criminal authorities, but also by the leadership of correctional colonies, says Oleg Tsvily. “Funding for these zones depends on the number of prisoners; in addition, many of them work in domestic production, which brings considerable profits to the bosses,” says the human rights activist. He recounts prisoners' complaints about corruption: the administration allegedly demands bribes for filing applications for early release, hinting at future high "combat" for serving on the front lines.

And yet the authors of the initiative to mobilize prisoners are full of optimism. Minister of Justice Denis Malyuska estimates the “mobilization potential” of the colonies at 20 thousand men and does not rule out reducing the restrictions on crimes committed in the future and even expanding the law to include convicted women.