Rusija i sve vezano za nju

In September and October 2022, the number of prisoners in men's correctional colonies in Russia decreased by 23,000 people, Mediazona reports, citing statistics from the Federal Penitentiary Service.
As the publication drew attention to, at the beginning of August, 349 thousand people were kept in correctional colonies, by September there were a thousand fewer, which corresponds to a long-term trend towards a decrease in the number of prisoners. However, by the beginning of October and November there was a sharp decline: to 338 and 325 thousand prisoners, respectively.
Comparable jumps in recent years, the journalists calculated, occurred only twice: in the spring of 2015 (then, as part of the amnesty for the 70th anniversary of the Victory, almost 15 thousand people were released in two months) and at the beginning of 2020 (since during the first wave of coronavirus, Russian courts ruled fewer sentences).
"Mediazona" suggests that the current reduction is due to the recruitment of prisoners in the  Wagner PMC . Its founder, businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, personally travels to the colonies, promising the convicts that after six months of participating in hostilities in Ukraine, they will be pardoned.