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Nearly seven months into Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” against Ukraine, the war seems to have an unofficial new leader: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin-linked businessman long accused of being the puppetmaster behind the shadowy Wagner Group.
Following myriad reports in recent months of Prigozhin touring Russian prisons in search of new cannon fodder, video leaked Wednesday that, for the first time, appeared to provide visual confirmation of the recruiting effort, as a man clearly resembling Prigozhin was caught on film telling inmates of a penal colony they could join Wagner and earn their freedom by fighting in Ukraine—or be shot if they try to retreat.
“In half a year, you’ll go home, having received a pardon.… Those who arrive and on the first day say ‘I’m in the wrong place’ will be marked as deserters, and execution by shooting will follow,” the inmates were told.