Russia ‘sends female prisoners to Ukraine war zone for first time as Putin tries to make up for heavy casualties’

Russia will reportedly send female prisoners to Ukraine’s war zone for the first time to make up for heavy losses suffered by Russian troops at the front.

Due to “heavy casualties” in the war, Vladimir Putin was looking for “alternative sources of manpower supplies”, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said.

“Last week, a train with reserved seats for transporting prisoners left for Donetsk. One of the wagons [was for] convicted women,” the Ukrainian military announced.

Previously, there was credible information that Russia brought female convicts to Kuschevka in Krasnodar Territory, near the war zone.

Here some female prisoners – released under a special arrangement in connection with the war – were used as farm workers in the fields and in “greenhouses and cowsheds”, possibly to supply the army.

Due to “heavy casualties” in the war, Putin has been looking for “alternative sources of manpower supplies” – and this is said to come in the form of female prisoners (file photo).

Putin reportedly sent female prisoners to Ukraine to fight

Olga Romanova of the Russian Behind Bars Foundation believes around 100 women have been sent to Ukraine.

Male prisoners were recruited by the tens of thousands in Russia and offered a deal to have their sentences commuted if they served – and lived – on the front lines for six months.

As a result, murderers, rapists and other violent criminals were released and eventually released by Putin, most of whom served in Wagner’s private army.

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed last month that his group would stop recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine – without giving any explanation.

But now there is evidence the Russian Ministry of Defense registers prisoners directly.

Last month, Ukraine’s general staff said that Russia was actively trying to “recruit convicted women to participate in hostilities.”

It must “compensate for personnel losses”.

Olga Romanova of the Russian Behind Bars Foundation believes around 100 women have been sent to Ukraine (file image of female prisoners)

Some were recruited from a women’s penal colony in Snezhnoye, a town in the occupied Donetsk region.

“It is also known that they are sent to the territory of the Russian Federation for training,” the Ukrainian General Staff said.

Several hundred women in prisons in the Sverdlovsk region – in the Urals – have urged local MP Vyacheslav Wegner to send them to Ukraine, it has been reported.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Wagner, said there was “resistance” among Russian authorities to sending women to the war zone.

However, reports suggest that women are now being deployed to the war zone, although their exact role is unknown.

Heavy battlefield casualties have also forced Putin to despair of emptying Russia’s museums of obsolete tanks to recycle in his crushing war effort.

Footage shows aging Soviet-era T-62s being “modernized” at a 24-hour factory in Chita, Siberia.

The push to restore the decades-old tanks highlights the desperation of Putin’s military machine – while Ukraine is supplied with modern Western tanks.

Vladimir Putin is desperately emptying Russian museums of obsolete T-62 tanks (on display at a military history museum in Russia) to repurpose for his grandiose war effort in Ukraine

Some of the tanks being rebuilt at the 103rd plant may be 60 years old, dating back to the days when Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev ruled the Soviet Union.

“It is sad that the number of military museum exhibits is being reduced,” said one report.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said today that Russia’s ammunition shortages “have worsened to the point where extremely punitive rationing of ammunition is in force on many parts of the front line”.

“This has almost certainly been a key reason why no Russian formation has been able to conduct operationally significant offensive actions recently,” the Department of Defense said in its recent briefing.