Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
Yevgeny Prigozhin has been touring Russian prisons in an increasingly desperate bid to recruit more soldiers to send into Ukraine. The Wagner supremo is now accused of using “pressure” to recruit raped and abused prisoners from Russia’s penal colonies to join the mercenary group’s frontline fighting units where they are being slaughtered with little training and poor equipment.
Russia’s penal system has the remnants of a Soviet-era prison caste system which has an underclass known as ‘The Shamed’ at the bottom. This lowest caste—also known as ‘Roosters,’ which is a homophobic slur—includes prison rape victims, gay prisoners and outcasts who are regularly beaten and abused.
Russian prison observers tell The Daily Beast that ‘The Shamed’ are being recruited by Wagner—Putin’s private army—as cannon-fodder who rarely survive long in “Prigozhin’s meat grinder.”