Rise Moldova investigation//Two Moldovans enlisted in Wagner group died on the battlefield in Ukraine
Two Moldovan citizens sentenced to prison in Russia were recruited last year by the Wagner mercenary group and sent to war in Ukraine. One still had relatives in the country under Russian attack, the other ended up there as a child in an orphanage after disappearing from home with his Ukrainian father, a Rise Moldova investigation shows.
The two are deceased, the source notes, and their names are written on wooden crosses in a cemetery with hundreds of graves set up by Wagner on the outskirts of the village of Bakinskaya in Russia's Krasnodar region.
The founder of the private army, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who recently marched his troops into Moscow in a coup attempt, confirmed that the cemetery belongs to his company.
Rise Moldova has identified the two Moldovans. They are one Ion, who in 2012 was sentenced to nine years in prison in Russia on charges of murdering his concubine, which he denied in a letter to his mother that same year. However, forensic experts have shown a direct link between the injuries and the woman's death.
The police then confirmed, including with witnesses, that there had been several conflicts in which Ion had been violent during the two years they had lived together. The concubine had kicked him out of the apartment several times and called the police for help. A psychiatric examination found that Ion showed no signs of mental disorder.
In the summer of 2022, when Wagner, a private mercenary company in Russia, began recruiting from prisons, Ion would spend another year behind bars. His latest lawyer declined to offer any comment about Ion and whether he had voluntarily joined Wagner.
Russia's Prison Administration confirmed to Rise Moldova that Ion was released from prison in July 2022 by an amnesty order issued by President Vladimir Putin.
Rise also contacted the press service of the Wagner parliamentary group, who eventually confirmed his death, but said that Ion had not named anyone in his will, which is why the company buried him in the Krasnodar village of Bakinskaya. He wrote that he was an orphan."
Vlad, the second Moldovan whose name appears on the cross, would have died on October 2, 2022, according to the data on the cross. He was 32 and had spent almost half his life behind bars in Russia. "Since he went (to Russia), he had never been to Moldova," says one of his brothers.
Although Wagner had a press service even before the war responsible for inquiries from relatives and the media, dozens of channels associated with Wagner emerged after 24 February 2022. In one of these groups, Wagner Gruz 200, which publishes information about murdered mercenaries, Vlad's death was also announced, confirming the information in Votanovsky's list. Vlad left for Russia with his father in 2005, shortly after graduating from nine classes in the village.
In February 2010, he was accused of stealing a phone worth 5,000 rubles after asking the owner to lend him the mobile to call someone. He then left a shop with an mp3 player, headphones and a USB cable worth 1,700 rubles. But he was detained by the shop guards. Vlad pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison for both offences in a strict regime prison.
He was also sentenced to one year and two months for theft. And in 2013, just 20 days after he was released, he was detained again. He had stolen two bicycles from apartment blocks, caught on CCTV. Vlad again admitted his guilt and compensated one of the people. He spent the next 2 years and 6 months in a strict prison. Other offences followed for which he was detained.
Rise has not obtained an answer from the Russian authorities as to whether Ion and Vlad voluntarily joined Wagner or were coerced. Nor whether they or their relatives in Russia were in any way remunerated.
There is still no approximate number about other Moldovans convicted, conscripted and sent to war in Ukraine, but before we completed this investigation, Rise learned the name of a third Moldovan prisoner conscripted by Wagner and sent to Ukraine. He would be buried in a different cemetery than the other two.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration says the Moldovan authorities cannot intervene in the process of recruiting Moldovan convicts, as they themselves would have to write a request to the Russian Justice Ministry to be transferred to Moldova.
However, according to data provided by the Russian authorities, 621 Moldovan citizens are currently behind bars. Of these 166 are in detention centres for criminal prosecution and 455 in prisons. The government in Chisinau, through diplomatic channels, should have asked for the number of Moldovan citizens sentenced in Russia and offered assistance, including consular assistance, says Vadim Vieru, a lawyer and human rights specialist.
State support, says Vieru, was all the more necessary because there are reasonable suspicions that the recruitment was carried out under pressure, and forced conscription is a violation of the laws of war and human rights.
