The number of people detained in Russian prisons decreased by 58,000 people last year, Russian independent media reported, cited by Reuters. The decline is partly due to the recruitment of convicts for participation in the fighting in Ukraine, the agency noted, quoted by BTA.
A total of around 105,000 prisoners were released in 2022-2023, the media reported, citing data published in the official gazette of the Russian Prison Service.
Russia has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world and a vast network of prisons and labor camps stretching across the country.
Moscow began recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine in 2022. Then Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late head of the Wagner mercenary group, began touring penal colonies, offering prisoners a pardon if they survived six months at the front.< /p>
He later died in a plane crash last year, two months after leading a short-lived rebellion against the Russian leadership. The oligarch previously claimed to have recruited 50,000 prisoners for "Wagner".
Since then, the Russian Ministry of Defense has continued to recruit convicts from prisons for its own "Burya-Z" formations. Regional authorities in Siberia say they plan to close several prisons this year amid a reduction in prison numbers caused by the recruitment of convicts for the war.
The decline in the prison population is part of a longer-term trend. Since 2009, the number of people convicted has nearly tripled, from about 730,000 to about 250,000, after Russia eased penalties for some financial crimes, independent media estimates show.