Holding his tattooed hands behind his back, he tells the men – all convicts – about his experience fighting for Ukraine in Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
The lives of thousands of Russian convicts have been expended in so-called “meat grinder” assaults, particularly in the fighting for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
“This is a regular state military service with all the guarantees: salary, social insurance, payments in case of injury, death, and so on.
Maliuska believes many prisoners see the program as a chance to shake off the “ex-prisoner” label that tends to stick to people even after their release.
The minister told CNN the government knows that prisoners might present challenges to commanders on the ground, but he said the law can be tweaked as needed depending on how things look in practice.
Among them is 28-year-old Dmytro, whose wife and two young children were killed by a Russian strike in the eastern city of Izium just weeks into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while he was serving a four-and-a-half-year term in prison.
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