Russians accused of crimes are offered a choice - war front instead of court

Around 06:45 on March 28, police arrived at Andrey Perlov's home near Novosibirsk in Siberia.

Andrey was accused of stealing about three million rubles ($32) from a soccer club in Novosibirsk where he was the managing director. He and his family deny this. 

Perlov, who is 62 years old, is an Olympic champion. He had won gold in the 50 kilometer sports walk at the "Barcelona 1992" Olympic Games. 

He has been in prison for more than six months and his family says he is being pressured to agree to fight in Ukraine. He has been told that, in return, the court case against him will be suspended and potentially dropped entirely when the war is over. 

It is no secret that prisoners have been recruited to fight in Ukraine, but BBC research reveals how the initial focus on convicted criminals has now also shifted to people who have yet to face trial. 

The latest legislation, passed in March 2024, means that if they are registered, tracking and any investigation will be stopped. The cases against them will be finally closed after the war. 

"This has turned Russia's law enforcement system upside down," says Olga Romanova, director of Russia Behind Bars, an NGO that provides legal aid to detainees. "The police can now catch a man over the dead body of someone he just killed. You handcuff him and the killer says: 'Wait, I want to go to a special military operation', and we close the criminal case". 

If the accused signs, within a few days the criminal case against him is suspended, and they leave almost immediately for the front line. 

Three lawyers working in Russia have confirmed that this has become the new norm across the country. 

Some sign up in the hope of avoiding prison and getting their records cleared – but it's not an easy way out, as the case of young Yaroslav Lipavsky shows. 

He signed a contract with the army after being accused of intentionally causing "serious harm to the health of several persons".  

His new girlfriend had just found out she was pregnant, and to avoid prosecution, Lipavsky enlisted in the army as soon as he turned 18. 

He left for Ukraine and a week later he died. He is one of the youngest soldiers who died in the war. 

It is not clear how many people accused of crimes have chosen to fight rather than face trial, but the change in policy reflects Russia's need to bolster its military ranks. 

"Do Russians care about convicts or those in prison? I doubt not," says Michael Koffman, military analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

He thinks that the Government "is likely to assume that these people that they can lose, no one will feel their absence and they will not have a significant, negative effect on the general economy". 

When the Wagner mercenary group first recruited prisoners, its now-deceased leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, targeted inmates in high-security prisons. 

He said he needs their "criminal talents" in exchange for pardons. 

The BBC and the Russian site "Mediazona" have seen and verified confidential documents that shed light on the process of recruiting prisoners, what happened to most of them and the need to maintain the flow of new fighters. 

It is known, from analyzing the necks of convicts who died in Ukraine and payments made to their families, that Wagner recruited about 50 thousand prisoners from penal colonies and at one point was losing up to 200 every day during the fighting. Many others were injured. 

All the prisoners' necks start with the letter K, which means "Kolonya" or penal colony. 

The first three numbers identify the prison they come from and the last three numbers identify the recruit – so the higher the number, the more recruits come from that penal colony. 

Payment records show that more than 17 prisoners were killed trying to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut between July 2022 and June 2023 alone. 

To make up for the losses, Wagner, and later the Ministry of Defence, adapted their recruitment strategies to widen the pool of people they could attract. 

Some people accused of crimes reject the new deal because they are fundamentally opposed to war, others because the risk of being killed or injured on the battlefield is too great, and others because they want to stay home to fight the issue of theirs. 

But they may be under a lot of pressure from the authorities, says Alina, Andrey Perlov's daughter.

"He refused and we made a big fuss in the local media, so he was sent to the strict punishment cell, where they brought him the contract again," says Alin. 

She says that when her father refused a second time, he was forbidden to see or call the family. 

They still hope to prove his innocence, but the last time Alina saw her father in court in mid-July, he had lost a lot of weight. 

"He tries to keep himself happy," said Alina. "But if this continues, they will break it." 

Russian authorities did not respond to questions about Andrey Perlov's case and whether prisoners are being unfairly pressured to join the army.