The Kremlin responded Friday to backlash after Russian President Vladimir Putin pardoned a high-profile murderer in exchange for his participation in the war in Ukraine.
Dmitry Peskov, press secretary for the Russian president, explained why Vladislav Kanyus, a man convicted in the murder of his 23-year-old ex-girlfriend, was issued a pardon to fight in Ukraine. He was sentenced last July to 17 years in a maximum-security prison over the murder of Vera Pekhteleva in Kemerovo, Siberia, in 2020.
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Russia has reportedly been recruiting extensively from prisons for months, in a bid to assist its war efforts in neighboring Ukraine. The British Ministry of Defense said in May that Russia’s military has “ramped up” its recruitment of prison inmates this year, but the effort has not kept pace with its casualty rate in Ukraine.
“They atone with blood for crimes on the battlefield, in assault brigades, under bullets, under shells,” Peskov told reporters.
The mother of the murdered woman said in June that she found out Kanyus had gone to Ukraine to participate in the war. On November 8, human rights activist Alena Popova said Kanyus had been issued a pardon by Putin.
Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Foreign Ministry for additional comment via email.
According to Agentstvo, a Russian investigative site launched in 2021, at least 17 people who committed high-profile murders—including Kanyus—were issued pardons to fight in Ukraine in 2022 and 2023. The publication said they all took part in the war in Ukraine, and some have committed crimes again upon their return to Russia.
Russian media also reported last month that former Wagner Group fighters are rampaging in Russia, They have been accused of committing a range of crimes after leaving the war zone in Ukraine and returning home.
The Wagner Group, which the Kremlin says has been absorbed by the Russian Defense Ministry following a failed mutiny attempt led by its late leader Yevgeny Prigozhin on June 24, recruited extensively from prisons beginning in 2022. Prigozhin died in a private jet crash in August.
Male prisoners were offered commuted sentences and cash incentives in return for six months of military service in Ukraine. In December 2022, Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian human rights activist who has interviewed former members of the Wagner Group, told Newsweek that as many as 30,000 prisoners had been recruited from jail and deployed to Ukraine.
Aside from recruiting prisoners, Russia is also reported to be hiring women for front-line roles in Ukraine, luring foreign fighters, and rounding up migrant workers with Russian citizenship.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.