From prison to the frontlines: Thousands of Russian convicts sent to fight in Ukraine

AMNA NAWAZ: Russia has

sent

hundreds of

thousands

of troops to its war in Ukraine and has suffered immense casualties. Some of that staff comes from Russian

prison

s, both officially and through a private military company called the Wagner Group. With support from the Pulitzer Center, special correspondent Simon Ostrovsky and cameraman Yegor Troyanovsky traveled to a Ukrainian

prison

er-of-war camp. They encountered men facing a difficult choice: prison or the front. SIMON OSTROVSKY:   I'm Artyom. Three months ago, he was serving a nine-year

sent

ence for murder in a Russian penal colony. He now calls his mother to tell her that he is no longer a prisoner.

He is a prisoner of war. ARTYOM, Prisoner of War (via translator): Hello. Mother. Hello WOMAN (through translator): Hello? ARTYOM (through translator): It's me. Listen, everything is fine. Don't worry. I'm fine. Basically, they captured me in Ukraine, you understand? WOMAN (through translator): But how? ARTYOM (through translator): It's war. That is what happens. WOMAN (through translator): Are they feeding you? ARTYOM (through translator): Everything is fine. There is food. WOMAN (through translator): Are they hurting you? ARTYOM (through translator): No. The surprising thing is that people in Ukraine are fine. SIMON OSTROVSKY: You are not alone. Artyom, whose name we have changed, is one of tens of

thousands

of prisoners who have been taken from prisons in Russia since June and thrown into the meat grinder that is the front line of the war in Ukraine.

While he waited in line to use the phone, he told us that he had three years left in prison and that he was recruited with the promise of freedom and good pay. ARTYOM (via translator): These soldiers show up in full uniform and say: This is how it is. You

fight

for half a year. If you are safe and sound, you will receive a full forgiveness - 100,000 rubles per month. Yes or no? I say yes. I guess I can

fight

for half a year. SIMON OSTROVSKY: Almost immediately, he was transported to an airfield on a prison bus and flown to Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, where he received about a month of training.

They then ordered him to raid a village. ARTYOM (through translator): They point to some coordinates and tell the commander: Go there. Take positions and fight. That's all. So let's go. We arrived. They are shooting. Everything is brutal, like war, really brutal. SIMON OSTROVSKY: After securing a foothold in the village, the

convicts

were ordered to retreat and were replaced by a different group of soldiers. Although we could not independently verify Artyom's account, it corresponds to assessments of how Russia is using

convicts

as expendable combatants thrown at the enemy in human waves. For many of the convicts held here, the path from a Russian prison to a Ukrainian prisoner-of-war camp is very short, because the Russian army uses convicts as storm troops, and the casualty rate is very high, as is than the capture rate.

This man was recruited from a prison in the occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine, and told he would simply be used to dig trenches and transport the wounded. MAN (via translator): Then when we arrived for our rotation, there weren't enough people and we were forced to form a wave. Our armored vehicle was hit. And we all jumped into the trenches and they just threw a bunch of grenades at us. I lost consciousness. I don't remember anything else. SIMON OSTROVSKY: When he came to, he no longer had his leg and he was a prisoner of war. But the vast majority of prisoners-turned-combatants have been recruited by this man, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of Russia's main military contractor, the Wagner Group YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN, Wagner Group (through translator): We are very scrupulous about the who are convicted of sexual crimes.

But we understand that sometimes people make mistakes. Who do we want? We're just looking for assault troops. SIMON OSTROVSKY: Last summer, Prigozhin, who is also an ex-convict, began visiting prisons across Russia to offer convicts a chance at freedom if they joined his ranks, and he didn't mince his words. YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN (through translator): The greatest sin is desertion. There is no going back, not a step back. Nobody surrenders. In training, you will be informed about the two grenades you will have to use when you are captured. MAN (through translator): Yevgeny Prigozhin flew to our prison and talked to the prisoners.

There were 560 people; He 220 agreed to sign a contract with the Wagner Group and participate in the special military operation. SIMON OSTROVSKY: This prisoner had eight years left on his sentence for trying to sell two kilograms of narcotics, when he signed a contract with the Wagner Group. After training for seven weeks, he fought only one battle. MAN (via translator): On January 2, we were given orders to advance 500 meters to the tree line. There were 10 of us. As we moved forward, we were committed. We had only advanced about 70 meters. Eight of us were killed. The commander who was wounded called our lines again and I ended up being captured.

SIMON OSTROVSKY: Now his biggest fear is that he will be transferred to Russia and sent back into battle. MAN (through translator): Because I signed a contract, I still have two months left, according to the contract. SIMON OSTROVSKY: "NewsHour" had to agree not to show the guards' faces or reveal the location of the POW camp in order to gain access. The prison is regularly monitored by international observers and appears to operate as a model facility. The POWs we spoke to told us they were giving interviews of their own volition. And while we can't be sure they weren't under duress, some of their responses were even defiant.

MAN (via translator): When they came to see us, they said they were from a private military contractor. They said they could help us get out of prison early, wash away our guilt in blood, so to speak. I decided that not only my family needed me, but also my country. So whatever I'm ordered to do, I'm sorry, but as a soldier, I must do it. A Russian must defend his country. Olga Romanova is the director of Russia Behind Bars, a prisoners' rights group with extensive sources in the Russian prison system. She told me that Wagner alone had recruited up to 50,000 prisoners to fight in Ukraine as of February of this year.

OLGA ROMANOVA, Director, Russia Behind Bars (via translator): Since February 1, the Ministry of Defense has begun recruiting in the same prisons as Wagner. They offer a full pardon after half a year, the same as Wagner: $140 per day, $50,000 for an injury that leaves a person disabled, and $80,000 in case of death. SIMON OSTROVSKY: What is the social effect that this is having in Russia, given the fact that people are not, that prisoners are not serving their full sentences? How does that affect their victims or the families of the convicts' victims? OLGA ROMANOVA (via translator): They could still easily recruit between 150,000 and 200,000 prisoners, in addition to the 50,000 they have already enrolled.

And how has Russian society reacted? Nobody regrets it. Everyone prefers them to be prisoners, rather than their own children and husbands, naturally. So this policy is very popular. SIMON OSTROVSKY: For former prisoners, life as a prisoner of war is not as big an adjustment as it is for ordinary soldiers, who are unfamiliar with the strict regime of a secure facility. ARTYOM (through translator): This is a correctional facility. If you don't break the rules, everything is fine. We got here yesterday and I haven't seen anything really bad yet. SIMON OSTROVSKY: The most important question for them is whether they will end up back in prison in Russia, or on the Ukrainian front, or as free men.

For now, the only thing they are sure of is that they have managed to survive until now. For "PBS NewsHour," I'm Simon Ostrovsky in Western Ukraine.