Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Russian Criminals Should Be Allowed to Fight in Hotspots Abroad and Have Sentences Reduced Accordingly, Orsky Says


Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 7 – Mikhail Orsky, a specialist on conflicts and the author of Confessions of a Russian Gangster (in Russian, Moscow, 2018), says that Moscow should use prisoners to supplement private military companies in hotspots abroad. Such a program would benefit the prisoners, the state and Russian society (ura.news/news/1052413884).

            It would benefit the prisoners, he tells Sergey Makeyev of the URA news agency, because it would allow those now behind bars to complete their sentences in freedom. It would benefit the state by helping to solve its manpower problems in this area. And it would help Russian society by giving violent people an alternative to organized crime. 

            “You cannot imagine how many people would sign up,” Orsky says. “Especially if their sentences would be reduced on the basis of ‘one day for two’ or about that.”  Such people would have to be carefully selected and then trained in special military camps to ensure that they would follow orders.

            That this idea is being floated reflects the difficulties Moscow has had in raising sufficient forces, including private military companies, given all the campaigns that Russia is now involved with. But it is likely to face resistance both from military commanders and from the Russian political elite.

            On the one hand, few military commanders are going to welcome the infusion of people who have track records of not following the rules and engaging in excessive acts of violence. And on the other, the Russian political establishment, already stung by reports of gratuitous violence by private military companies, is unlikely to welcome such proposals.

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