He noted that he completely disagrees with the policy of the Russian Federation, which allowed the opposition to escape.

The leader of the “Wagner” Communist Party Yevgeny Prigozhin commented on the information about his visit to the high-security prison where politician Oleksiy Navalny is serving his sentence for recruiting prisoners.

RBC Correspondent Love Porivaeva sent a request to Prigozhin asking him to comment on Navalny’s statement. At first, “Putin’s cook” avoided answering, but then changed his mind.

Prigozhin said that the journalist’s questions “lie in the plane of a petty attempt at reckless espionage.” At the same time, he refused to directly answer whether he was in the colony where Navalny is sitting, limiting himself to the statement that “he often flies by helicopter and is in different places.”

Regarding the legality of recruiting convicts, Prigozhin said that it gives convicts the opportunity to “clean up and get a second chance in life, having gone through the horrors of war.” In addition, “no one can take away from a person the right to defend his Motherland, his mother and his family by all available means.”

“I globally disagree with the state’s policy in that all the “mass-like” were given the opportunity to run abroad. They should have been collected, formed into one penal battalion and handed over to me. And don’t doubt that they would have died as heroes,” he said.

Russian prisoners in the war against Ukraine

Against the backdrop of heavy losses among the Russian military, the Russian Federation is actively recruiting prisoners to participate in the war against Ukraine.

Prigozhin personally recruits prisoners in Russian colonies. He promises a monetary reward and amnesty to potential militants.

According to the Russian publication “Mediazon”, against the background of sending prisoners to war, the number of people in Russian colonies decreased by 23 thousand in the first two months of the autumn of this year.

“The army of convicts is becoming an army of suicides. And as soon as they run out of prisoners, the organizers of this massacre will find themselves in their ravaged cells,” the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine commented on the situation.