“Officers of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) are now actively involved in the implementation of strategic tasks ensuring the security of the state,” RBK quotes the press department of one of the branches of the Roslezchoz state corporation.
Ten thousand prisoners fell at Bachmut
The number of prisoners in Russian correctional facilities and prisons decreased by 33 thousand people last year, according to official FSIN data. Convicts began to be actively encouraged to participate in the war in exchange for a pardon. According to Wednesday’s statement by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the head of the so-called Wagner Group, 50,000 prisoners were recruited into its ranks alone, of which ten thousand, according to him, fell at Bachmut.
In particular, prisoners from penal colonies in the Krasnoyarsk region, Arkhangelsk and Irkutsk regions, where there are the most forests in Russia, are missing. It is precisely in these regions that the decline in mining is the most striking – in the Krasnoyarsk Region it is a full 43 percent.
According to a representative of the Russian company Roslesinforg, the labor of convicts placed in the facilities of the Russian prison service is used in felling, but also in wood processing, in the production of charcoal, briquettes and pellets or wood chips, in the production of fences, mining (Russian steam baths) and other wood production. “The range is considerable, starting with logs and ending with wooden souvenirs,” RBK quotes him as saying.
Russia’s overall 13.5 percent decline in logging is due to Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine, which have caused reduced demand, said Alexei Bogatyryev, CEO of Lesprom Network.
Russia is mobilizing prisoners on a large scale
The war in Ukraine
