RUSSIAN MERCENARY CHIEF AIMS TO RECRUIT 30,000 NEW FIGHTERS BY MID-MAY

Sun 19 March 2023:

By the middle of May, the Wagner mercenary group in Russia intends to add about 30,000 additional fighters, according to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the group’s founder.

Wagner recruitment centers, which he said had opened last week in 42 Russian cities, were reportedly employing 500–800 people every day on average, according to an audio message he sent on Telegram.

While directing Russian efforts to seize the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which has resisted since last summer in the longest and bloodiest struggle of the year-long conflict, Prigozhin’s soldiers have suffered significant losses.

In January, the US estimated that Wagner had 50,000 militants in Ukraine, including 40,000 prisoners whom Prigozhin had enlisted after promising them a free pardon if they managed to survive six months.

Unable to be independently verified, Ukrainian officials have stated that 30,000 of Wagner’s fighters have either deserted, been killed, or suffered injuries.

Recruitment, according to Prigozhin, is going better than he had anticipated, and the volunteers are in better physical condition than the previous inmates he had taken on.

“By the middle of May, we plan on increasing the number of fighters in our units by about 30,000,” he said.

Since many months ago, Prigozhin has actively promoted Wagner’s participation in Russia’s war, constantly griping that the military’s senior brass are not giving his company enough credit and even claiming they are depriving it of ammunition, an allegation that the defence establishment denies.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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