According to the British secret service, the boss of the Wagner mercenaries, Prigoshin, has to lower the standards when recruiting new men. Supposedly he puts "quantity over experience or quality". Even serious illnesses should no longer be an exclusion criterion.
According to British secret services, the Russian mercenary group Wagner has significantly relaxed its strict hiring criteria due to significant losses. "It has maintained relatively high recruitment standards in previous conflicts, and many of its mercenaries had previously served as professional Russian soldiers," the Ministry of Defense said in London.
Recently, however, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin suggested in an online post that the group would now also recruit prisoners with serious illnesses such as hepatitis C. "The acceptance of prisoners with serious medical concerns underscores that quantity is now the priority over experience or quality," the UK ministry said.
Prigozhin also recently discussed plans to build a 200-kilometer defense position called the "Wagner Line" in eastern Ukraine. "This undertaking would require a great deal of manpower. There is a realistic possibility that some of the prisoners recruited from prisons will first be used to build up the defences," it said in London.
The British Ministry of Defense has published daily information on the course of the war since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine at the end of February, citing intelligence information. In doing so, the British government wants to both counter the Russian portrayal and keep allies in line.
