25%survive: what is the life expectancy of the prisoners of the Russian Armed Forces - the BBC investigation is

The life of the average "Wagner" or the fighter "Storm Z" in the war in Ukraine lasts on average from a month to half a year. This conclusion was reached by the BBC. "My brother died on March 6, 2023. He was at the front since November, left the colony. He only called. He did not stay alive, " - says the relative of the convicted person. "Although she was looking for information about her son - nothing as if he had dissolved. Even death was not reported.

I wrote in a group where I was given information about the dead. For the first time I wrote to them in January, I was told: I did not appear in the lists of the dead, I will calm down. And then it turned out that my boy was killed in December. "Lives are now returning. He spent six months and got pardon. To understand how much the life expectancy of a prisoner in the war can really be, the Air Force's publication has studied the obithologists of 9327 prisoners who died in Ukraine.

Of these, 1910 people were fought in the Storm units, and 7417 in the Wagner PEC. From June 2022 to the end of January 2023 prisoners from the colonies were recruited by representatives of the Wagner PEC. They were offered 2 weeks of study and then for another 5. 5 months at the forefront in exchange for freedom and conviction. The convicted person was promised a salary of about 100 thousand rubles a month.

Since February 2023, the Russian Defense Ministry has traveled to recruit prisoners, leaving similar conditions. Since September 2023, the conditions have changed significantly-the salary became at the amount of 250 thousand rubles, the convicted received all the benefits, as from contract servicemen, and conditional dismissal. And their contract with the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation became indefinite - by the end of the fighting.

In order to find out the life expectancy of the convicted person in the war, the Air Force distinguished a group of 1,040 people who had a known and date of the contract and the date of death. This information became known for published obithologists and the notification of the relatives of the victims. 540 people from this sample were "Wagner", and the other 500 - fought in the "Storm" units of the Ministry of Defense of Russia.

"Analysis of the collected data shows that the losses of the Wagnets are distributed more or less evenly. But prisoners who fought in the units of the Ministry of Defense, die shortly after arrival at the front. Half Three months after the signing of the contract.

The above figures do not mean that half of all convicts were killed in the war who went to war against Ukraine, since the sample of analysis is incomplete, because the exact number of all dead and the total number of prisoners from the Russian colonies who went to the war is unknown. The New York Times was able to receive a list of prisoners who went to Ukraine with IR-6 in Chelyabinsk in October 2022. Of the 196 people sent to the war for the party, 70%survived.

Many of them were seriously injured, in particular, they lost their limbs. But, according to two sources of Air Force at the Wagner PEC, who participated in the recruitment process, who went out to war in later parties, died much more often. From January to early March, the weekly losses of Wagner were not lowered below 300 people. The largest one -time losses of the Wagnerivtsi suffered from March 24 to March 25 - then 182 people were killed, including 141 prisoners.

These are only the data we managed to install on open sources. Real losses are probably much higher. The head of PEC "Wagner" Yevgeny Prigogin said in the Russian Federation that the loss of Russian Federation in Bakhmut was 22 thousand killed. Journalists were able to set names only 10 348 of them, that is, just less than half. According to the organization "Rus Sitting" to the Wagner PEC, 50 thousand convicts went from the Russian colonies.

According to human rights defenders, by March 2024, the Russian Ministry of Defense could send more than 60,000 convicts to the front. The percentage of those who survived among them are definitely unknown. But the former prisoners themselves believe that 50 to 70% of those who go to the front from the colony with detachments of the Ministry of Defense.

The prisoners say that priests come to the front before sending them and they read prayers, but there is sometimes no one to workouts on landfills. The Air Force found that many convicts were killed in the first two weeks after leaving the colonies, that is, at a time when they were promised to study at a training ground. "On April 8, a man only concluded, and on the 11th, he arrived in the assault detach The call.

"Many soldiers of the vending machines were unusable, and when the command came that Ivanova or Petrov's machine was unus Can't. -wrote in his blog Z-activist Vladimir Grubnik, who was engaged in the help of detachments "Storm". According to the expert of the Royal Institute of Joint Defense Research (Rusi) Samuel Kranni-Evans, prisoners are thrown into the most complex areas of the front to preserve the forces of elite units that suffered heavy losses in the first stage of the invasion in 2022.

Russia has significantly changed the tactics of its military operations in Ukraine compared to the first months of the war. Improved with complex landing or sabotage operations came "meat storms". "After all, it plays the hand of the Russian army. They receive small territorial acquisitions, even if the cost of significant human losses," Evans adds. He noted that every report on the captured Ukrainian village improves the situation of the warlords responsible for the operation.