Well, let me, as an inmate in a maximum-security prison, also give my opinion on recruiting criminals for the war. I read the transcript of the famous video. There’s a lot to discuss here, including how many people may now decide to commit a serious crime, knowing there’s now a way like this to avoid serving time. But I have an insider’s perspective on a different issue. It is being claimed that what is needed for the war are murderers, thieves, robbers, and people convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm. And for some reason, many people are under the impression that these categories of citizens are some kind of savage fighters. Like something out of *Suicide Squad*. Of course, all kinds of people are in prison. Maybe there are even a couple of actual militants. But I say with full responsibility that in 90% of cases: — a murderer is a heavy drinker who once got so drunk that he stabbed a neighbor, a drinking buddy, or—most often—his wife 18 times; — a thief is a guy looking for money who went to shopping malls and snatched iPhones from schoolkids; — a robber is an alcoholic junkie who followed women to the entrance of their apartment building and stole their handbag there. To make them hand it over faster, he hit them on the head with a hammer; — grievous bodily harm means some guy got into a drunken fight and hit someone on the head with a club or a rock. So what exactly is this army supposed to accomplish in war? It’s not for nothing that neither in the USSR nor in Russia today do they take ex-convicts into the army. Almost all such people have major problems with discipline, and even bigger problems with alcohol and drugs. I don’t believe in any kind of prohibition enforced under threat of execution. Everyone there has weapons, and it’s not even clear who would shoot whom. Disciplined convict storm troopers are just as much a fairy tale for fools as the “dozens of successful wars fought by the Wagner PMC (private military company).” They exist only in Prigozhin’s dreams. I think the first thought of any convict watching this video would be: “My God, if they’re recruiting US for the war, then what state is the regular Russian army in? Does it barely exist at all?” The only thing one can be sure of is that many of the murderers, robbers, and thieves who survive definitely will never return to normal life. They will go on robbing and killing, only now demanding special treatment, shouting: “We shed blood for you.” In fact, in the second video you can see the first signs of it.