Russian prisoners sent to Ukraine must now fight until the end of the war rather than for 6 months, report says

• Russian prisoners recruited to fight in Ukraine are no longer sent for six months, the BBC reported.
• Instead, they will likely have to stay until the war ends, whenever that might be.

Russian prisoners who are sent to fight in Ukraine are now being made to serve until the war ends instead of just for six months, the BBC reported.

Russia has sent tens of thousands of prisoners to fight in Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Earlier prison recruits were sent for six months and, if they survived, were given full pardons.

But prisoners who sign up for the fight now are being told that they will likely have to stay on the front lines until the end, according to the BBC.

They can get a full release only if they get a state decoration, become incapacitated, reach the oldest age for serving in the military, or the war ends, the outlet reported.

Prisoners will also no longer get a full pardon, the BBC reported.

Instead, they can get a conditional release, which means that if they are found guilty of committing another crime, their new sentence will reflect their older convictions.

A man who identified himself online as Sergei and posted in a forum for Russian prisoners fighting in Ukraine wrote that he had been part of an army unit since October and, "If you sign up now, be ready to die," the BBC reported.

"Before you could wing it for six months. But now, you have to make it until the end of the war," he said.

The new army unit Sergei said he was fighting in is called Storm V.

Storm V fighters are serving on the front line, including at Zaporizhzhia and Bakhmut, the BBC reported, citing interviews with soldiers and their relatives, as well as chatroom messages.

A woman from Russia's eastern Transbaikal region told the BBC that her husband was recruited from prison into a Storm V unit in fall 2023. They thought that if he fought, he could come home faster.

But the contract he signed said that he would fight for a year, rather than six months, and it "will be automatically extended."

Others who have family members in Storm V units also say their relatives will have to stay until the war is over, the report said.

Russia is believed to have recruited over 100,000 prisoners since it launched its invasion.

Prisoners were initially recruited by the Wagner mercenary group, but the group's access to prisoners was revoked in early 2023 as its feud with Russia's Defense Ministry intensified.

The ministry then adopted the strategy itself.

Some recruited prisoners were convicted of violent crimes, and some of those pardoned have been accused of crimes since returning to Russia.

Throughout the conflict, experts and captured soldiers have described released prisoners as being used as "cannon fodder" in Ukraine.

Some Storm V soldiers get just three to five days of training before they are dispatched to Ukraine, the BBC reported.

The report said a recruited prisoner wrote on an online chatroom: "Your chances of survival are about 25%. I've been a stormtrooper for five months. Out of our platoon of about 100 men, only 38 are still alive."

But the sheer number of troops that Russia can send, both prisoners and nonprisoners alike, is a huge issue for Ukraine, despite its troops being perceived as better trained.

Russia has a notable advantage in troops and ammunition, and its tactics are often to try to simply overwhelm Ukrainian soldiers.

Ukraine says it needs more advanced weaponry from its allies to counter these tactics.

A senior Ukrainian army spokesperson said that Russians "are superior in both equipment and personnel," adding that Ukraine needed "a lot of ammunition to destroy such power and intensity."