Vladyslav "White" is a former Russian prisoner from the PMC "Wagner", who was captured by Ukraine and joined the RVC, where he became the commander of an assault group. In the Online.UA documentary "White Moth is Done!" about the "Russian Volunteer Corps", he spoke about the cases of punishment in the Russian army, that he witnessed.
Recruitment of prisoners in the PMC "Wagner"
"White" says he served a three-year, eight-month sentence in Russia for grievous bodily harm after standing up for two girls. He spoke about how Yevgeniy Prigozhin came to his colony to recruit militants.
Before Prigozhin's arrival (that day no one knew that Prigozhin was coming), they took away all the electronics, cameras. They even took away from the staff the video recorder radios, saying "some general is coming". Why and what for? Nobody knew a thing. Then Prigozhin arrived by helicopter. We already knew inside that it was Prigozhin.
"White" says that Prigozhin introduced himself and said that there were options to leave the camp right now, to serve six months. He promised a new life with a clean slate: criminal records are removed, privileges for children, and relatives in case of death.
Assaults as part of the PMC "Wagner"
Training for war, White says, took two weeks of 20 hours.
Two weeks passed, and we were sent closer to the front. Our new commander came and said: "Today there will be an assault. We supposed he was joking, because it was our first day at the front. But it turned out he wasn't joking.
They were given a target and only commanders had satellite phones and GPS. They also didn’t give a full description of why they would be sent somewhere. The army simply said: here is this point and you must take it at all costs.
You should realise that we had no way back. Once you get on the plane, if you change your mind, they won't take you back. You just don't come back alive, for disobeying orders you are shot, almost for everything you are shot.
"White" says that a person from his group was shot because he was simply afraid during the assault.
We had the first assault, the artillery was covering very hard. We were pinned down under a bridge, artillery was working from both sides, we were already jerkily running further down the open land. One guy was afraid to run. On his return from that task, everyone who came back alive made him dig a grave. He got a bullet in his forehead and that’s all. At least, in a month and a half, I saw cases like this three times.
Another militant was shot for "sowing trouble" in the "Wagner" group.
He said the truth, that we're just being thrown like meat. He got killed for it. Personally, in the direction where I’ve been, we had 400 people killed in assaults in a week.
