Olga Romanova, the founder of the Rus Sitting foundation, wrote on Facebook that human rights activists began to receive mass appeals from relatives of prisoners who are allegedly being recruited to the Wagner PMC and sent to Ukraine. “Mediazona spoke with Inna Bazhibina, the coordinator of Rus’ Sitting, who communicates with the prisoners’ relatives and reads their letters every day.
- How do you find out about prisoner recruitment?
- So I have a personal referral site. I read the letters that come to the foundation from places of incarceration, and I also respond to the messages that come to our website in the form of a questionnaire. And there are emails – these are messages that come from these places of incarceration to the Moscow office.
- And what questions do relatives come to you with? What do they say, what do they ask for help with?
- Mostly the first one: Is it legal or illegal to send prisoners to a war zone? So in response to this question, our lawyers, the legal department, prepared two materials where they explained it all. So, I just give people the link and people draw their own conclusions. If they already have some specific questions, we try to answer them.