In the summer of 2022, Yevgeny Prigozhin began recruiting fighters in Russian colonies to fight in the war as part of the Wagner PMC. A few months later, the first reports emerged that the Russian authorities had begun to commemorate the prisoners who died in Ukraine. At least two such memorials were known at the beginning of 2023. Over the course of a year and a half, the number of prisoners commemorated in Russian regions has exceeded 400 people, Verstka found out using data from Mediazona, the BBC Russian Service and its own calculations.
In addition to individual memorial plaques on schools and residential buildings, portraits of deceased ex-prisoners and lists of their merits decorate school stands, “heroes’ desks,” memory alleys, and city streets, organize museum exhibitions and sports competitions in their honour, plant trees, and engrave their names on memorials of participants in local conflicts and even on complexes dedicated to the victory in the Great Patriotic War.
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One board, two boards
Most often, the memory of deceased prisoners is immortalized on individual memorial plaques and tablets, or their names are engraved on military memorials. In addition, more for “educational” purposes, portraits of deceased prisoners can be placed on information boards, memory corners, and “heroes’ desks” in schools.
In total, according to Verstka’s calculations, during the war in Ukraine, at least 408 former prisoners were commemorated in 58 regions of Russia: 93 were placed on memorial plaques, another 42 on stands and plaques on memory alleys, in 193 cases their names were engraved on group military memorials, and in another 15 cases they were used to decorate “heroes’ desks.” In other cases, museum exhibits and memory corners were created in honour of the deceased prisoners, stands and banners were installed, and streets and districts were named.
The most common crimes for which future “heroes” ended up in prison were murder, attempted murder, and causing serious bodily harm resulting in death: 128 cases. Then come drug crimes: 110 cases. Future “heroes” also committed 88 thefts, 24 robberies, and 46 robberies. In addition, the authorities immortalized those convicted of beatings, threats to kill, banditry, and in two cases, rape and violent acts of a sexual nature.
In some cases, “heroes” could be convicted under several similar articles at once. Moreover, more than half of the prisoners whose memory was immortalized were repeat offenders, including for repeated murders and causing serious bodily harm resulting in death. For 123 immortalized “heroes” convicted of murders and causing serious bodily harm resulting in death, there are 143 human victims, Verstka calculated.
New “heroes” for schoolchildren
On 22 April, a memorial plaque to “Hero Vasily Andreevich Amagachan” was ceremoniously unveiled at a school in the village of Evensk in the Magadan Region. School line-ups, students performing the Russian anthem, a speech by the principal, and a minute of silence.
“From an early age, Vasily loved the traditional way of life of his ancestors – he was engaged in reindeer herding, hunting, and fishing. In his school years, he was fond of Greco-Roman wrestling, played the guitar, and wrote songs. In his youth, he dreamed of military service in the ranks of the special forces,” Magadan authorities said.
Radiotelephone shooter Amagachan managed to fight for only three weeks: on 13 October 2023, he “stood up to defend the Motherland, took part in the SVO, protecting the peace and tranquility of the residents of our country,” and died on 2 November 2023.
“The memorial plaque will remind everyone of the courageous man who committed a valiant act defending the Motherland. His memory will forever be in our hearts,” the school group said in a post.
According to Magadan courts, Amagachan had three previous convictions: he robbed a woman, killed an acquaintance, and attacked an FSIN officer. According to the most recent convictions, his sentence was set to expire at the end of 2026.
According to Verstka’s calculations, during the war at least 56 memorial plaques dedicated to former prisoners were installed on the walls of educational institutions: children’s rehabilitation centres and boarding schools, lyceums, schools and colleges. Most of them are granite slabs with a portrait, first name, last name and patronymic, and the years of life. Among the immortalized “heroes” are at least 12 murderers and those who caused serious bodily harm resulting in death, 19 thieves and robbers, and 15 convicted of drug offenses.
In the Altai village of Yudikha, a school wall was immortalized in the memory of Wagnerite Ivan Kulabukhov, who bludgeoned to death with a hammer a man who had sheltered him while he was studying at college. In Novokuznetsk, a memorial plaque was placed on the wall of a rehabilitation centre for minors in honour of Wagner PMC mercenary Ivan Mitin, who stabbed his uncle to death and was previously convicted of robbery with serious bodily harm resulting in death. In the Dagestani village of Gisik, at a local school, the memory of Yunus Selimov was immortalized, he carried out a contract killing based on a blood feud and buried his victim alive in a garbage ditch.
Also, in schools and kindergartens, stands with “heroes” were placed, among which there are at least 19 ex-prisoners, and in school and local history museums - memory corners and exhibits dedicated to 26 convicts. For example, in the boarding school for children with disabilities, in the Kostroma region, the memory stand “as an example of courage and heroism” was decorated, among others, with portraits of Andrei Kolesnikov and Pavel Varochka.
Three-time convicted Kolesnikov received his last 11-year sentence for the murder of his brother, and Varochka served 12 years in a penal colony for drug-related charges, including inciting minors to use drugs. He forced his 13-year-old daughter and her 14-year-old friend to use the product he had made under threat of violence.
In kindergarten No. 3 in Tavda, Sverdlovsk region, a “memorial plaque” was installed for Alexei Pershin, who was serving a five-year sentence for attempted drug trafficking on a large scale.
In addition, at least 15 “hero desks” installed in educational institutions in Russia were dedicated to former prisoners - five of whom were convicted of murder. One of them is Yevgeny Pichuyev from Zabaikalsky Krai. In 2015, he received 16 years in a maximum security penal colony under several articles, including for gang robbery with murder. Together with two friends, they attacked a family of pensioners, beating one of them with a wooden bat. A “hero desk” was installed for him in a school in the village of Kholbon in the Shilkinsky District of Zabaikalsky Krai.
The director’s advisor for educational work and a physical education teacher at this school, Alexey Mironov, told Verstka that the school has two “hero desks” and two monuments in honour of the three students who died in Ukraine. Pichuev was given only a desk because he served in a private military company, not the regular army.
“At the beginning of the special operation, our students, Alimov and Gurulev, were killed. The Defence Ministry and the administration erected monuments to them,” says Mironov. “Pichuev died later, and since he was in the PMC, it was not possible to erect a monument to him, no one sponsored it. But the school decided that since he studied with us, to erect a hero’s statue.”
A desk in Pichuev’s honor was installed in the physics classroom. The location was chosen so that the desk would be well-lit and visible from the corridor, Mironov told Verstka.
According to him, not all parents of schoolchildren reacted positively to the fact that the school decided to honor the memory of a man convicted of murder.
“My personal opinion is that he atoned for the crime with his blood. But some people say outright that he is a murderer. They have mixed feelings about those who went from prison to defend their homeland,” said the educational adviser.
Yevgeny Sainakhov from Yugra, convicted of threatening to kill, theft, attempted theft and intentional damage to someone else’s property, also ended up in one of the “heroes’ parties.” “For us, he will always remain an example of courage and heroism, a true defender of the Fatherland,” wrote the authorities of his native village of Saranpaul. In the court files, he will remain as a four-time convicted person, including for rape.
“The slabs will disturb our souls every day”
Authorities in Russian regions are not limited to immortalizing “heroes” from the colonies in educational institutions.
On 5 February 2024, in the small village of Tambovka in the Omsk region, two memorial plaques to servicemen who died in Ukraine were ceremoniously unveiled. The event was attended by parents, relatives, classmates of the soldiers, fellow villagers, representatives of the Orthodox Church with icons, the head of the district and the head of the rural settlement.
“A heartfelt ceremony filled with sublimity,” where the melody of “Requiem” was played and the vocal group “Sudarushka” “heartfeltly” sang a song about Russia” — this is how the author of the local newspaper “Towards New Frontiers” described the event.
“They laid down their lives for us, for our right to live without looking back to the West, to live traditionally, as bequeathed by our ancestors, our grandfathers and fathers,” said the abbot of the Sargat Holy Nicholas Monastery, Hegumen Seraphim, sprinkling the memorials with holy water.
The initiators of their installation were the residents themselves, who also raised money for this. “Here the slabs will remind us of the soldiers every day, disturb our souls,” explained the village elder Tatyana Khovrina, justifying the choice of the place.
The memorials were installed on the wall of the village club, and in the past – the school, “to which these guys ran carefree, not imagining that they were destined to step into immortality.” One of them was a volunteer of the PMC “Wagner” Vasily Zhigachev, who went to war from the colony and “laid down his life in the Donbas near Artemovsk, turned by Ukrainian neo-Nazis into a fortified fortress.”
“Before that, he called his mother and said that he was going to war to atone for his guilt. Shortly before his death, he contacted her again: “Mom, forgive me for everything…”, the newspaper’s article says.
In 2019, Zhigachev received 16 years in a maximum security prison for theft, robbery, and brutal murder of a fellow villager. Together with a friend, he got drunk and broke into someone else’s house, and when the owner returned, he beat him with a crowbar and stabbed him in the neck. The criminals’ loot was a thousand rubles and a TV.
At least 23 such memorial plaques were installed on the residential buildings of the “heroes’ ” administration buildings, community centres and village clubs. Most of them are in honour of those convicted of drug offences and car thefts, a quarter are for murderers and those who caused serious bodily harm resulting in death.
Among them was one convicted of rape – Vladimir Popov, a Wagnerite from Komi who died at the age of 49. “We are bidding farewell to a true defender and warrior. He defended us, our country from fascism,” said Nikolai Kanev, head of the Ust-Tsilemsky district, at his farewell. A memorial plaque was installed in the village of Khabarikha on the house where the brother of the deceased Wagnerite lives.
Vladimir Popov fought as part of the Wagner PMC and died near Donetsk in March 2023. Popov was convicted of rape and violent sexual assault in November 2021.
There is a corresponding case in the Izhimsky District card index, but there is no text of the verdict, and the name of the convicted person is not indicated. Verstka has discovered another court decision (we are not publishing a link to it for ethical reasons), according to which Popov was convicted in this case.
The court ruling said he committed rape and other sexual acts ” by exploiting the helpless state ” of the victim, who suffered from “a mental disorder in the form of mild mental retardation.”
The local news agency BNK wrote about Popov’s sentence without mentioning his name. According to it, the man was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for drinking at home with the victim and, realizing that she would not be able to resist, first raping her and then “taking a wooden curtain rod plug lying on the floor and inserting it into the victim’s genitals.”
There are also more “solid” examples of perpetuating the memory of prisoners - a street in the Ali-Berdukovskoye rural settlement of Karachay-Cherkessia was named in honor of Zaur Beshtaov, who was convicted four times for theft, carjacking and traffic violations. It is noteworthy that it was previously called “Camp”.
In honour of Alexander Sokin, who was convicted five times for property damage, robbery, threatening to kill while breaking into a home, and drugs, an entire block in the Crimean village of Urozhayny was named.
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Alleys and memorial complexes for prisoners
The Alley of Heroes on the central street of the Transbaikal village of Makkaveevo was ceremoniously opened in 2023 to the sound of Oleg Gazmanov’s song and the Russian anthem. Along the alley, stands with portraits and stories of 12 residents who died in Ukraine were placed, and a sakura tree was planted, “symbolizing purity and rebirth.”
At least two of the 12 “heroes” turned out to be ex-prisoners and repeat offenders. Aleksandr Chipizubov received his last term for theft and Roman Baranov – for murder. The man became jealous of his ex-partner, killed her and tried to kill her new husband.
There are similar alleys, where prisoners were among the “heroes,” in at least eight regions: Irkutsk, Kaliningrad, Voronezh, Saratov, Kemerovo regions, Krasnodar and Primorsky territories, and Transbaikalia.
But most often, as Verstka has established, deceased prisoners are memorialized en masse at group memorial complexes, both new and previously created in honour of participants in local wars or the Great Patriotic War.
In total, according to Verstka’s calculations, at least 198 ex-prisoners are immortalized at 23 group military memorials in Russian regions, two-thirds of whom are repeat offenders with multiple convictions. Among them, almost a third, 67 people, were convicted of murder and serious bodily harm resulting in death, 55 – under drug-related articles, and the rest mainly for theft, carjacking, robbery, and assault.
The largest number of ex-prisoners ended up at the memorial “To fellow countrymen who died in local wars” in Victory Park in Saratov. In total, according to the latest data, during the war in Ukraine, 644 names of fallen combatants were added to the memorial, including at least 71 prisoners killed during the fighting.
Moreover, both locals and those from other regions. For example, among them was a native of Komi, Dmitry Volekov. Since 2010, the man had been serving a 20-year sentence for causing serious harm and torturing his pregnant partner, as well as for the murder of her young child.
In addition to Volekov, at least 26 others immortalized alongside him were convicted of murder and causing serious bodily harm resulting in death. For example, 39-year-old Vladimir Kuznetsov, who served almost 20 years in prison since 2004 for double murder. Or Vyacheslav Kazeev, sentenced to 11 years in a maximum security prison, who beat up an acquaintance on Victory Day in 2017, who later died. Moreover, his father Igor Kazeev, who served time for threatening to kill, is also immortalized alongside Vyacheslav Kazeev.
Among those immortalized is Atkarsk resident Vyacheslav Duyunov, sentenced to 16 years for robbery, illegal entry into a home, rape and violent acts. During the robberies, the man climbed into other people’s houses and raped women.
The second in terms of the number of immortalized prisoners was the memorial to the Defenders of the Fatherland in Volgograd’s Kamyshin. It became the first mass monument to participants in the war in Ukraine that appeared in Russia – it was opened on the first anniversary of the beginning of the “SVO” on the territory of the memorial to the defenders of the Fatherland.
In addition to those who died in the Afghan, Chechen, and Syrian campaigns, 90 names of servicemen who died in Ukraine were also engraved on the new columns. “To those who dreamed of love and a beautiful life, but gave their lives for the happiness of others,” this is how they described the soldiers immortalized on it, “who died in battles with neo-Nazis,” at the opening of the memorial.
At least 21 of them were convicted: four were convicted of grievous bodily harm resulting in death, six were convicted under drug-related articles, and the rest were convicted of theft, robbery, and assault. One of those immortalized, Stepan Chernikov, managed to kill two people in his lifetime.
“Our duty is not just to remember these guys, these people, soldiers and officers, but to pray for these people. Because all of us, as we go through life, make some mistakes, and commit sins. Therefore, we will pray that the Lord forgives their sins, that the Lord accepts their eternal repentance,” said a priest who was present at the opening ceremony.
The third largest number of prisoners is the memorial in Sterlitamak. Here, the names of those killed in Ukraine are immortalized in Victory Park, also on the memorial to internationalist soldiers. Among the 80 names of the dead, at least 20 are prisoners, half of whom are convicted of murder and serious bodily harm resulting in death.
The names of former prisoners have also been added to memorials dedicated to WWII participants. This happened in Naberezhnye Chelny, where the names of at least two Wagnerites appeared on the memorial wall of the Motherland memorial complex, created in honour of the 30th anniversary of the Victory. These are Anatoly Romanyuk, who served an eight-year sentence for beating an acquaintance to death. And Almaz Malikov, sentenced to 16 years in a maximum security prison, who hacked to death his ex-wife’s new lover in 2019.
The most “patriotic” regions
The Saratov Region turned out to be the region where the memory of the largest number of prisoners was immortalized. Here, at least 77 previously convicted participants of the war were placed on memorial plaques, group columns and memory alleys. Some of them were placed several times. For example, Denis Safarov, convicted of robbery and murder, was among the “heroes” on the memorial “To fellow countrymen who died in local wars” in Victory Park in Saratov, and on the Alley of Heroes in the Narodny Park in Novouzensk.
Mikhail Domnikov, convicted of hijacking, was also featured on the memorial to “Fellow Countrymen Who Died in Local Wars” and on a memorial plaque on the wall of a school in the village of Rybushka. Two other prisoners, Dotan Iskaliyev (convicted of stealing cattle) and Pavel Plotnikov (who attacked a National Guard officer), put together a “combo”: they were immortalized on memorial plaques on the walls of schools and technical schools, and on the memorial to “Fellow Countrymen Who Died in Local Wars”, and on the Alley of Heroes of Novouzensk.
The second region in terms of the number of immortalized prisoners was the Volgograd region – here they decided to preserve the memory of 27 such “heroes”, the majority - on the memorial in Kamyshin, and another six – on memorial plaques on the facades of buildings.
In third and fourth place are the Republic of Bashkortostan and Rostov Oblast, where they decided to immortalize 23 prisoners, respectively. Most of them were also placed on military memorials. Moreover, in Rostov Oblast, the names of those immortalized on the monument columns to internationalist soldiers in Azov were also ” duplicated ” on another, new memorial dedicated to the participants of the “SVO” from Azov.
Krasnodar Krai came in fifth place, with 16 dead prisoners commemorated here. Most of them were at memorial complexes and memorial alleys, with one on a school stand, one in a museum exhibit, and one on the “hero’s desk.”
“This fact was not widely covered”
The number of ex-prisoners whose memory has been immortalized in Russia is probably greater—the authorities do not always publish text lists of “heroes,” limiting themselves to photographs of memorials, where not all names and dates are discernible.
In some cases, memorials do not indicate the full dates of life and only leave the last names and initials of the deceased. For example, the media did not report on the immortalization of Mikhail Bobylev in the “Alley of Memory” in Ostrogozhsk, but his portrait was found in a video by a local blogger. In 2010, Bobylev was sentenced to 20 years in a special regime for extortion and brutal murder. To get the money, he and his accomplice beat up their victim, broke her arm, and beat her with a stool, then took her to the river and kicked her in the head again. After that, they tied a brick to her neck with a rope and threw her off the dam into the river.
In some cases, the data of “heroes” may be indicated with errors. This happened to Igor Seroshtanov, immortalized on the Alley of Heroes in the “Mira” park in the village of Otradnaya. The photo of his memorial is not in the local newspaper’s article about the opening of the alley, but it was captured on a video by a local resident, and his last name was indicated with an error – SerAshtanov. In 2011, he was sentenced to 20 years in a maximum security penal colony on several charges, including double murder. In his native village, he first strangled his 64-year-old uncle, who refused to lend him money and then strangled a 73-year-old notary to steal his car.
In Saratov, for the second year, the authorities have been adding names to the memorial to “Fellow Countrymen Who Died in Local Wars” in Victory Park – local media regularly write about this. At the same time, journalists noted, ” the granite slabs contain the names of people whose deaths the regional authorities had not previously announced or had not widely covered.”
Let us recall that, as Verstka previously calculated, in 2023, more than 190 criminal cases were opened against Wagner PMC fighters pardoned by the president who returned from the war in Ukraine. For example, we told stories about how a Wagner PMC fighter killed a resident of the Moscow region because she fell in love with another man, and another fighter pardoned by Putin returned from the front, beat up his girlfriend and left her to die in the cold.
Cover: Alisa Kananen
