At the beginning of the war with Ukraine, the Russian Federation was forced to recruit prisoners for a short period of time. Currently, the main source of army replenishment will be regular contract recruitment.
How the Kremlin replenishes its army
The summary noted that an investigation by BBC Russian service showed that from September 2023, the Russian military stopped recruiting prisoners on short-term contracts.
Prisoners are currently offered standardised (long-term) military service contracts, which involve agreeing to serve in the military until the end of the partial mobilisation order in September 2022.
According to British intelligence, short-term prisoner contracts have caused some public controversy in Russia, particularly over the recidivism of returning prisoners and the prisoners' short service compared to indefinitely mobilised reservists.
It is highly likely that the short-term prisoner recruitment was a response to immediate military recruitment pressures earlier in the conflict. In 2023, the Russian state highly likely turn to regularised contract recruitment as the primary source of new military personnel, the British Ministry of Defense notes.
Russia is recruiting prisoners for the war against Ukraine
It is worth noting that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late leader of the "Wagner Group", started recruiting prisoners for the war with Ukraine in 2022. According to him, almost 50,000 people went on this scheme. They were at the front for six months, and then Vladimir Putin issued a pardon order.
The Russian mass media calculated that Russians mobilised in the war in Ukraine an average of 4-5 months after receiving the summons, and one in five did not survive even two months.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, the number of the Russian occupation contingent in Ukraine may now be about 460,000 people.
The CIA chief, William Burns, said the Russian army had lost at least 315,000 people killed and wounded since the beginning of the war.
