He was released from a Russian prison and thrown into battle against Ukraine, with the promise of freedom, redemption and money.. Andrei Yastrebov was among tens of thousands of convicts who were turned into soldiers. Now his return from the front poses serious threats to society in Russia..

22-year-old Yastrebov was serving a sentence for theft. He came home a different person.

" He has no emotions,” a relative of the mercenary told the New York Times on condition of anonymity for fear of punishment..

Thousands of Russian prisoners were killed on the battlefield. Some of them died within days or even hours upon arrival at the front, say Russian human rights activists and Ukrainian officials. Those who managed to survive return home and remain silent, fearing retribution if they start talking.. Vladimir Putin's decision to allow mercenaries to recruit Russian prisoners to go to war against Ukraine marked a turning point in his 23-year rule, human rights activists and lawyers say.. Such a policy circumvents Russian legal precedent and, by returning some violent criminals home with pardons, creates the risk of a large outbreak of violence in the community.. This shows the price Putin is willing to pay to avoid defeat..

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About 40,000 Russian prisoners have been sent to war since July, according to data from Western intelligence services, the Ukrainian government, and the Russian organization Sitting Rus.. In Ukraine, they say that about 30 thousand of them became deserters, were killed or wounded.. Although this figure cannot be verified. Most of the men sent from prison to the war served time for petty crimes such as robbery and theft.. But records obtained by the New York Times from one of the Russian colonies say that among the recruits were also rapists and convicted of murder..

" Everything is now allowed. And this creates very serious consequences for any country,” said Olga Romanova, head of the Rus Seated organization..

More than six months ago, Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner PMC began systematically recruiting prisoners. The process has taken on a scale that has not been seen since the Second World War. Many were sent to storm the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine, although the operation remains classified and shrouded in propaganda.. Human rights activists say that Wagner was able to go unnoticed by exploiting the most marginalized citizens of Russia - 350,000 convicted men serving sentences in strict regime colonies. This month, dozens of war survivors began returning to Russia with medals, large sums of money and documents supposedly guaranteeing their freedom.. There will be more and more of these people as Wagner's six-month contracts come to an end.. So Russian society could potentially face the challenge of reintegrating thousands of traumatized men with military training, a criminal record, and no job prospects..

“These are psychologically broken people who return with a sense of righteousness, the belief that they killed to protect their homeland.. These are very dangerous people,” said Yana Gelmel, a Russian human rights activist..

The New York Times writes that its journalists conducted interviews with activists, lawyers, relatives of recruited prisoners, deserters and convicted Russians who remained in prison but maintain contact with friends who went to the front. They describe the complex system of brutality that Wagner, backed by the Kremlin, built to make up for Russian military losses using questionable and even illegal methods..

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Andrei Medvedev says he joined Wagner a few days after his prison term for theft ended. Since he is a former prisoner with military experience, he was appointed commander of a detachment of other convicts who carried out suicide missions near Bakhmut.

“We were told: go until they kill you,” Medvedev said during a telephone conversation. In November, he deserted and fled to Norway, where he asked for political asylum..

The New York Times recalls that Yevgeny Prigozhin, who owns the Wagner PMC, began recruiting prisoners in July. He came to a prison in St. Petersburg, offering convicts to repay their debt by joining his private army in Ukraine.. Prigozhin's visits immediately provoked legal issues. Mercenary is prohibited in Russia. And until 2022, a close friend of Putin even denied the very existence of Wagner..

On paper, convicted Russians have never been to war. They were allegedly only transferred to Russian prisons near the Ukrainian border.. This is evidenced by the responses to inquiries from their relatives.. When Anastasia tried to find her convicted relative who was recruited, the guards in the prison told her that he was not available.. Igor Matyukhin was a robber who decided to join Wagner. A 26-year-old orphan from Siberia said that he was just serving his third term in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Then in November, Prigogine flew in by helicopter, offering freedom.

Wanting to get a chance at a new life, Matyukhin immediately joined the mercenaries. A few days later he was sent to a training camp near occupied Lugansk.. According to the Russian, there he encountered something completely different instead of the patriotic brotherhood that he expected to see.. Matyukhin described the climate of fear created by the Wagner mercenaries for the convicts to force them to go into battle. According to him, the convicts were threatened with summary executions.. One man from his unit was taken away for disobeying an order. And he never came back. Then the Ukrainian army launched a surprise attack on a Russian training camp.. Matyukhin took advantage of the chaos to escape. Since then, he has been trying to get back to prison from a hiding place in Russia.. Matyukhin's relative confirmed that he was recruited by Wagner. But his other claims could not be verified..

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To encourage prisoners to become mercenaries, Wagner began publishing videos of war survivors receiving their rewards.. They are given pieces of paper that supposedly should grant them pardon or annul their sentences.. However, none of these documents has been published, which casts doubt on their legitimacy.. Human rights activists say that pardon is a rare, long-term and complex legal procedure.. And in Russia, such decisions have never been made on the scale that they talk about in Wagner.. According to the Russian constitution, only Putin can sign a pardon. And the Kremlin has not published such orders since 2020.. In 2021, Putin pardoned only 6 people.

Russian law requires that all petitions for clemency be first analyzed by special regional committees before they are submitted to the Kremlin.. However, two members of such commissions said they did not receive any appeals from recruited prisoners.. One of the officials who spoke to the New York Times is based in St. Petersburg, where Yastrebov lives.. Human rights activists say that the dubious status of convicts who return from the war undermines the legal system of the Russian Federation and ties their fate to Wagner.

After staying at home for only three weeks, Yastrebov said that he was already ready to return to the war, despite the huge losses in the detachment of prisoners..

" I like everything there. Civil life is boring,” he said..