Wagner Group's Recruitment of Mercenaries in Russian Schools Raises Concerns.
Members of the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary group, have reportedly visited schools in Moscow to recruit students as fighters after heavy losses in Ukraine. The group's founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has opened 42 outreach centers across Russia to replenish the ranks of his private army, which has been depleted by bloody battles for the control of Bakhmut. The group had previously recruited up to 40,000 convicts from Russia's prisons, but about half of them have likely become casualties. In a desperate bid to bolster its forces, Russia is reportedly recruiting and deploying female convicts to the war zone.