1st Assault Battalion recruits volunteers in prisons

27 May, 2024 The Ukrainian military is recruiting prisoners, May 2024. Photo credits: Dmytro Savchenko Officers of the 1st Separate Mechanized Battalion "Da Vinci Wolves" named after Dmytro Kotsiubaylo showed how they recruit volunteers in prisons for the war against Russia.

Dmytro Savchenko, a battalion officer, spoke about working with prisoners. "We jumped into this process and addressed the prisoners in the most understandable language... After all, we were on the other side of the barricades and knew the patterns and algorithms.

And our prisoners are much more ideological than the nasty PMC Wagner," says the author of the photo. In his post, Savchenko published a photo in one of the penitentiary institutions during the recruitment of prisoners.

?????????? ????????? ?????????? ??'???????, ??????? /p p2024 ????. ????: ?????? ????????. The Ukrainian military recruits prisoners. May, 2024.

Photo credits: Dmytro Savchenko

On May 17, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed Law 11079-1 authorizing the mobilization of certain categories of prisoners into the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The draft law was initiated by the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff, and supported by the Ministry of Justice. The law allows for the conditional early release of certain categories of convicts who have expressed a desire to be mobilized into the Armed Forces of Ukraine and sign a contract by a court decision.

Previously, convicts could not join the army. In exchange for the possibility of parole after completing their service, volunteers convicted of minor crimes will be able to join the Armed Forces. However, a prerequisite has been set: no more than three years of their sentence should remain until the end of their term.

According to the draft law, prisoners for the following crimes cannot be mobilized:

  • against the foundations of national security of Ukraine;
  • intentional murder of two or more persons or combined with rape;
  • sexual violence;
  • those who have a criminal record for committing criminal offenses under Articles 152-156-1 (crimes against sexual freedom), 258-258-6 (terrorism), part four of Article 286-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (fatal road accidents while intoxicated), unless such convictions have been canceled or removed in accordance with the procedure established by law;
  • those who have attempted to kill law enforcement officers;
  • those who committed particularly serious corruption violations;
  • those who held a particularly responsible position regardless of the article of the crime (ministers, deputies, their deputies, assistants, etc.).

In an interview with The New York Times, Justice Minister Denys Maliuska said that as of the end of the month, almost 350 prisoners had already been released.

According to Maliuska, the judiciary is already reviewing most of the 4,300 applications submitted by volunteers so far.

He added that about 20,000 such applicants, including those in pre-trial detention centers, could be recruited.

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