RFE/RL – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny says the leader of the notorious Vagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, recruited dozens of inmates from the penal colony where Navalny is being held in the Vladimir region, 70 kilometers east of Moscow. Navalny, who is currently in solitary confinement, said on Twitter on December 21 that another inmate told him of Prigozhin’s two visits to the colony in recent days. Prigozhin has recruited thousands of prison inmates across Russia to fight in the Moscow-launched war in Ukraine. To read the original story from RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.