Vladimir Putin’s Russian army is using convicts as “cannon fodder” in a desperate bid to make headway in Ukraine, a new report has claimed.
Meanwhile Yevgeny Prigozhin has admitted the Wagner Group, Russia’s mercenary army, which he bankrolls, is struggling in its bid to capture the key eastern city of Bakhmut in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance.
Citing information from the Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War’s latest report, published yesterday, said convicts were deployed to Soledar in the Donetsk Oblast in October.
The strategy, which essentially apes Wagner’s own approach, is an “indicator that the Kremlin seeks to exploit convicts for future human wave attacks”.
