Russia is recruiting female convicts to serve in Ukraine amid growing battlefield losses, reports say

• Reports have emerged of Russian efforts to recruit female convicts to fight in Ukraine.
• Ukrainian officials said a carriage full of female prisoners was seen heading towards Donetsk.

Female Russian convicts have been recruited to serve in Ukraine as Russian forces experience mounting losses, according to reports.

"Last week, a train with sleeping cars for the transfer of prisoners was spotted moving towards the Donetsk region. One of the cars [had] female convicts [in it]," Ukraine's Defense Ministry said in an update published on Monday, per The Moscow Times.

The report suggested that Russia was seeking to find new sources of fighters against a backdrop of heavy losses.

In Bakhmut, the region's major flashpoint, Russia has been losing five soldiers for every Ukrainian killed, according to an estimate by a NATO military official speaking to CNN in early March.

Olga Romanova, the founder of prison charity Russia Behind Bars, told independent Russian news outlet Important Stories on Monday that she had been aware of such efforts since the end of last year.

According to Romanova, roughly 100 women were taken from Russian colonies in the Krasnodar region, and for two months were held in agricultural sites before being sent to Ukraine. The region borders occupied Ukraine by way of the Kerch bridge that connects Russia to Crimea.

On February 4, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense also said that Russian forces were trying to attract women prisoners in Snizhne, a city in occupied Donetsk, to join the hostilities.

Around 50 women were sent for training, the MOD said.

Insider was unable to independently confirm the reports. However, in December last year Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the private military company the Wagner Group, responded through his press service to a question about female prisoners serving in Ukraine.

He was reportedly approached by politician Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Wegner, who said a team of women imprisoned in a penal colony in Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk Oblast, had indicated they would like to serve as medics or signal staff in the war.

Prigozhin, per his press statement, said that Wagner was working towards this, and that he would also like to see them serve as snipers or saboteurs.

Wagner has long been known for recruiting men directly from Russian prisons, offering them clemency in exchange for six months of service — and retribution if they run from battle.

Prigozhin later announced that he was ending this policy, amid reports that inmates were put off by the mounting death toll.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies said in 2020 that women made up roughly 4.26% of Russia's armed forces.