Volunteers for the war in Ukraine are being sought not only in Russian prisons. Mental health centers are now also joining the search. Journalist Andrei Zakharov discovered a recruitment ad posted by St. Petersburg Mental Health Center No. 2.
The ad is posted on the mental health center’s website, directly underneath the information for visitors who are required to undergo psychiatric evaluation for gun ownership. The ad says that the military commissariat of the Vyborg district is looking for volunteers willing to join the named units “Kronshtadt”, “Neva” and “Pavlovsk”.
It is not known on whose initiative the ad has been posted. The mental health center refused to comment to The Insider and hung up.
In September, the Telegram channel Rotonda, citing a source, said that St. Petersburg authorities had already begun looking for fighters to join the “governor's battalion” among the homeless. Thus, an official from the Frunzensky District Administration visited one of the Nochlezhka shelters for the homeless and attempted to hand out propaganda leaflets. The District Administration claims their task was “to supply information about contract service to everyone who can be reached”, but the distribution of leaflets at the shelter was allegedly a personal initiative of the officials.
Meanwhile, there is a large-scale campaign to find volunteers among criminals - it was launched by “Putin's chef” Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner PMC. He has been personally vising penal colonies and recruiting inmates. According to convicts, Prigozhin claimed his actions were sanctioned by Vladimir Putin personally. Moreover, Putin has already begun to decorate ex-cons for their participation in the war.
Thus, the head of Gulagu.net Vladimir Osechkin told The Insider that Ivan Neparatov, a criminal gang leader sentenced to 25 years for murder, received the Medal for Courage posthumously. He was supposed to get out of prison in 2038, but instead was killed in the Donetsk region after being recruited into the military.
