Wagner Group sets up outreach teams based in sports centres – British intelligence.

About half of the prisoners, whom Russia’s Wagner Group has already deployed in Ukraine, have likely been killed or wounded.

The British Ministry of Defense wrote this on Twitter with reference to intelligence data, Ukrinform reports.

“About half of the prisoners Wagner has already deployed in Ukraine have likely become casualties and the new initiatives are unlikely to make up for the loss of the convict recruit pipeline,” the report says.

It is noted that in recent weeks, Wagner Group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin has likely lost access to recruiting in Russian prisons due to his ongoing disputes with the Russian MoD leadership. Prigozhin is highly likely pivoting recruitment efforts towards free Russian citizens.

“Since the start of March 2023, Wagner has set up outreach teams based in sports centres in at least 40 locations across Russia. In recent days, masked Wagner recruiters also gave career talks in Moscow high schools, distributing questionnaires entitled ‘application of a young warrior’ to collect the contact details of interested pupils,” the report says.

The British Defense Ministry noted that if the ban endures, Prigozhin will likely be forced to reduce the scale or intensity of Wagner operations in Ukraine.

As reported by Ukrinform, servicemen of Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service launched a counter-attack and eliminated a group of Russia’s Wagner mercenaries who occupied a production shop of one of Bakhmut's industrial enterprises.