Wagner PMC founder wants to send women to fight in Ukraine

The founder of Russia’s most infamous mercenary organization PMC Wagner Group has signaled his support for sending convicted women to the front in Ukraine.

In a conversation with Vyacheslav Wegner, Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Sverdlovsk region, Yevgeny Prigozhin stated that he was ready and willing to send women into Ukraine in more than just combat support roles. 

"I absolutely agree with you,” Prigozhin was reported to have said to Wegner in a press service released on Telegram, “not only [not only should we send women] as nurses and communications officers, but also as sabotage groups and sniper pairs.

We are working in this direction,” Prigozhin, saying that “there is resistance, but I think we will overcome it."

Prigozhin’s response came after Wegner explained an experience he had with a group of female prisoners from the city of Nizhny Tagil in the Sverdlovsk Oblast. 

According to Wegner, this particular group of women was "ready to go to the zone of a special military operation as communications officers, doctors, nurses."

Unfortunately, it looks like the head of the Wagner Group would rather see women in more than just combat support roles. 

Prigozhin first began recruiting convicted criminals back in September when it became apparent that Russia was running severely low on soldiers. 

In a now famous leaked video, an unidentified man who bares a striking resemblance to Yevgeny Prigozhin addressed a large group of prisoners in the city of Yoshkar-Ola, telling them that their sentences would be commuted if they served six months in Ukraine. 

“You won’t be any different from us,” the still unidentified man in the video stated, “I’m taking you out alive. But don’t always return you alive.”

Wagner Group has been spearheading the attack on Ukraine’s all-too-important city of Bakhmut since May, and it has been the site of some of the greatest loss of life since the war began. 

Back in November of 2022, Andrii Yermak, Ukraine’s Head of the Office of the President, revealed that many of the criminals recruited out of Russia’s prison system into Wagner were being sent into battle without proper protection and were being used as expendable soldiers. 

"They are being taken to positions without weapons like cannon fodder,” Yermak said in a statement on his Telegram channel. 

“Then the so-called ‘camels’ bring these weapons even before the order to run forward. They get a machine gun, without armor and helmets, and raid our positions,” Yermak continued. 

“This is what happens every day near Bakhmut,” Yermak added, “they lay down hundreds of such people in the hope that they will be able to weaken our defenses."

It is unclear how recruited female convicts would be integrated into the current fight in Ukraine. But it can be assumed that Wagner commands would have as little regard for their lives as they do for the lives of the convicted male criminals currently serving on the front lines in Bakhmut.