Putin plot: Russian prisoners in -35C jail forced into war as staff 'cut heating in cells'
"The prisoners are simply sent en masse to the Ukrainian defense line and are sacrificed in the process."
Russian authorities are reportedly cutting off the heating freezing prisons to force inmates to go fight in Ukraine.
Temperatures have plummeted to -35°C in many parts of Russia and brutal weather conditions are being exploited to boost Vladimir Putin's weakened troops in Ukraine, according to human rights activists.
"For this reason, they just cut off the heating for them at below zero temperatures," said Olga Romanova, director of the Russia Behind Bars human rights organization.
"By doing so, the conditions in prisons must become unbearable so that the men there would go to Ukraine."
Speaking to German news outlet BILD, Romanova claimed there were three groups of people for whom most people in Russia have no compassion when they are killed in action.
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"They are prisoners, [national] minorities living in poor regions far from Moscow and new citizens," she said.
"As long as these three groups are fighting and dying in Ukraine, Putin can create the illusion of normality for the rest."
Putin's regime is also increasingly recruiting women from its jails. Experts believe up to 1,000 Russian women who are now fighting in Ukraine.
“The success of the prisoner units is, however, quite manageable, which we can also observe in the current developments at the front,” Romanowa said.
“The prisoners are simply sent en masse to the Ukrainian defense line and are sacrificed in the process.”
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The drafting of prisoners began last summer as the now-deceased head of the Wagner Group mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin recruited tens thousands of convicts to fight on the front line.
The practice was then reportedly continued by the Kremlin after Prigozhin died in a plane crash after a failed coup against the Kremlin.
Moscow denied any involvement in his death.
As of December, Russia's prison population was estimated to have dropped from around 420,000 before the war to about 266,000 as Putin's forces looked to bolster their numbers after heavy losses in Ukraine.
The Russian government has been approached for comment.
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