Facing a shortage of troops, Ukraine has started releasing people from prisons if they sign up to fight against Russia. DW met with formerly incarcerated people as they trained before being sent to the front line.
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00:00Not long ago, these men were locked up for often violent crimes.
00:07Now, they're being trained to kill.
00:10Let's go! Let's go attack!
00:12Ukraine is turning criminals into soldiers
00:15to try to fill the ranks and hold back the Russians.
00:18And they are said to have certain advantages.
00:24These boys are already hardened by life.
00:26There's a concept of what honour and dignity are.
00:30Therefore, these guys have a lot of motivation.
00:32Maybe when they go to serve as soldiers, they make good soldiers.
00:39All of them served time in prison, including their instructor.
00:45He was a soldier in the Donbas war
00:47before being sentenced to eight years for aggravated battery.
00:51He served five and a half and got early release
00:54in return for rejoining the military.
00:57Man, I showed you before.
00:59You need to lean on with your helmet.
01:03As a fellow convict, Victor knows where these recruits come from.
01:08As a soldier, he also knows where they're headed next.
01:12Now he is passing on what he learned fighting in the trenches.
01:17Igor is just 23.
01:19He spent the last five years, his entire adult life, in jail.
01:27There's nothing for me to do in prison.
01:29I ended up there out of stupidity.
01:31I was young, I got into a fight, and I ended up in prison.
01:36Volunteering was never about redeeming himself, he tells us,
01:39but about having a purpose in life and protecting others.
01:45Right now I feel ready to go,
01:47but I know that this feeling might change on the battlefield.
01:56We're interrupted.
01:58We just had to stop the interview.
02:00The instructor shouted, take cover,
02:03and now we're taking cover underneath these trees here.
02:06It turns out this was a FPV, a Russian suicide drone.
02:11This time, though, it didn't hit.
02:15Using prisoners to fight the war was long frowned upon here in Ukraine.
02:19The Russians began recruiting in prisons early on.
02:23Many ended up as cannon fodder.
02:26The Ukrainian prisoners are being given the same training as other recruits.
02:30Some say they seem to adapt faster
02:33and show more motivation than the average civilian.
02:37Like most soldiers, these men will serve until the end of the war,
02:41or until they're disabled or killed.
02:45We meet with men recovering from combat injuries.
02:52I called him Lavender.
02:55He's as loyal as a person.
02:58Any support, it seems, is welcome.
03:03I suffered a concussion and lost 17% of my vision.
03:09I'm completely deaf in one ear.
03:15Ivan is a father of five.
03:18He's a veteran of the war in Donbass.
03:21He was jailed for aggravated robbery.
03:24Ten years imprisonment with confiscation of property.
03:29I served seven years, had three left.
03:34I understand that it wasn't worth it.
03:36I wasn't keeping the right company.
03:43I didn't have the right friends.
03:49Ruslan was hit by shrapnel in his recovery.
03:52He did time for theft and fraud.
03:55Now he is fighting.
03:59I've changed.
04:00But I don't even want to talk about what's happening at the front.
04:04With such a situation, the Russians advance and advance,
04:07and it's not known what will happen.
04:10We try to do something to stop it.
04:12You can't stop all of them, but at least some of them.
04:17These convicts are taking big risks for their freedom.
04:21But many seem to think it's a way to leave old mistakes behind
04:25and change the course of their lives.