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Russia is recruiting convicted women to bolster its military forces, a Ukrainian intelligence spokesman said.
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Moscow wants to recruit the convicts for auxiliary and combat roles, the Kyiv Post reported.
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More than 100,000 convicts from Russian penal colonies were recruited to fight in Ukraine.
Russia is recruiting convicted women to bolster its war effort in Ukraine, Kyiv Post reported, citing a Ukrainian intelligence spokesman.
Women are promised financial incentives and the prospect of freedom in exchange for their service, the report states.
Andriy Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence service (HUR), told the Kyiv Post: “We are not just talking about auxiliary units, but also combat units if necessary.”
The role of women in warfare has expanded rapidly since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The fate of many of the recruited Russian convicts is grim, however, with only a few making it back alive, Yusov said.
“Most of the female prisoners recruited by Russia were killed or returned with serious injuries,” he said.
The practice of offering freedom to convicts in exchange for military service in Ukraine began under Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late founder of the Wagner Mercenary Group.
More than 100,000 convicts from Russian penal colonies have been recruited to fight in Ukraine so far, said Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian human rights activist who heads the prisoners’ rights group. Gulagu.nethe told Newsweek in December.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, defended Russia’s use of prisoners in war, saying they “atone with blood for crimes on the battlefield, in assault brigades, under bullets, under grenades.”
In January, the UK Ministry of Defense reported that Russia was on track to lose 500,000 troops by the end of 2024 after transforming its forces into a “low-quality, high-quantity mass army.”
Business Insider has contacted the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment.
“War doesn’t care if you’re a man or a woman”
Ukrainian women have been joining the military in significant numbers since the 2022 large-scale invasion of Russia.
Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported a more than 40% increase in the number of female soldiers in its forces between 2021 and 2023, with around 43,000 women serving in military roles as of October 2023.
O BBC reported in August 2023 that 5,000 women served on the front lines.
“A war doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman. When a missile hits a house, it doesn’t matter if there are women, men, children – everyone dies,” sniper Evgenya Emerald told the BBC.
“And it’s the same on the front lines – If you can be effective and you’re a woman, why wouldn’t you defend your country, your people?”
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry opened up more combat positions to women in 2016 and again in 2018, meaning they could serve in roles such as infantry or snipers, CNBC previously reported.
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