The organizer of PMC “Wagner” E.V. Prigozhin, in response to a question from Russian media journalists, replied that the recruitment of prisoners in the Wagner PMC had been completely stopped. Evgeny Viktorovich commented:
Before those who work for us now, all obligations are fulfilled.
In an exclusive commentary to CNN, E. V. Prigozhin informed:
Since the release of the Wagner PMC advertisement aimed at the American audience, we have received more than 10 million applications from US citizens wishing to join the Wagner PMC to fight against NATO.
At the moment, we are considering about one million American citizens for employment. Therefore, we temporarily suspended the recruitment of volunteers from Russian prisons, however, if there is a corresponding request from the US State Department, we will recruit from American ones.
Recall that On February 24, 2022, the head of Russia addressed the nation and announced the start special operations to protect Donbass. Putin pointed out that the purpose of the operation is the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.