anakinandpadme.jpg

Anakin: “Sign a contract and serve 6 months or until death”

Padme: “Whichever comes first, right?”

Anakin: …

Padme: “Whichever comes first, right?!”

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Russia has been releasing prisoners to fight in Ukraine for more than a year, originally offering them a pardon and freedom after six months, even if they have been convicted of a violent crime.

Before he died in a plane crash in August, Prigozhin said that almost 50,000 Russian prisoners had been dispatched to the front line under this deal - similar figures have been cited by human rights activists.

From reviewing messages in chatrooms and speaking to fighters and relatives, the BBC can confirm that Storm V troops are currently serving along the front line, from Zaporizhzhia in the south of Ukraine to Bakhmut in the east.

One woman from the Transbaikal region in Russia’s Far East, who wished to remain anonymous, told the BBC her husband was recruited into one of the Storm V squads at the beginning of autumn 2023.

Posts on social media from other Russians whose relatives are serving in Storm V units indicate they too will have to stay on the front line until the end of what Moscow calls its “special military operation”.

Prisoners are warned about this when they sign up, and it follows a September 2022 decree by Vladimir Putin which essentially means that when a contract expires it can’t actually be terminated and is renewed.

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