Any joy here is fleeting.
This dance could be their last.
Russian soldiers, most convicts here
living it up hours before
being sent to the front lines.
They fight to be pardoned.
But here, over half died.
At the front, survivors said
even some after
they've lived through the battles
of Viktor.
Seven was jailed for armed robbery
and assault,
but taken out of prison
and thrown into the worst
fighting outside of Soledar
His unit joking here
before they assault a factory
the next day suffered
catastrophic casualties.
He told his wife
Victor survived
but as he lay injured in hospital,
he feared being dragged from his bed
and executed for poor performance.
This is his last message to his wife.
days later.
His wife
got a closed coffin back
after a call from a soldier
who said Victor had died
from shrapnel injuries.
He's buried here outside Moscow
There's something
very different, though,
about civilian life
to many of the prisoners
sent to the front line
to make up for Russia's
devastating casualties.
Most are sent by a shadowy private
military contractor, Wagner,
who in this propaganda
video
are keen to portray
rare survivors coming back.
Joyful, grateful, even,
and last week
claimed to have stopped
recruiting in prisons altogether.
But seven and several convicts CNN
has spoken to said
they were hired
from jail directly
by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
It's a remarkable use of convicts
directly by Moscow.
And Ukrainian intelligence says it's
captured them on the front line.
even among
Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine,
there are now those recruited
into the private
companies of the defense ministry
of the Russian Federation.
They emphasize to us
that they are not forgotten,
but officially invited
by the defense ministry
Here we hear echoes of internal squabbles
in the Russian military leadership role.
Wagner's presence is being diluted
with convicts
directly controlled
by the defense chief's Shoigu
and Gerasimov.
So we hear someone
recruitment has surged.
These government figures
showing a sudden 27,000 drop
in the prison population last year
when the scheme was just underway
with no apparent amnesty to explain it.
There is a large proportion have died
with this
Wagner training video
showing one of the reckless tactics
prisoners are used
for charging forwards together
at the enemy
surveillance
that was part of a unit called 08807.
And its other frontline survivors
know how hard it is to stay alive
under the Ministry of Defense.
We spoke to several
from their hospital beds
hiding their identity.
A former soldier jailed on drugs
charges described being sent back twice
to the front while injured.
Another convicted on manslaughter says
half his unit became casualties.
It's a recruitment scheme, ensnaring
whoever it can.
Some aren't even Russian
In this ghoulish ceremony,
Wagner honors
Tanzanian student Nemes Tarimo.
He was detained on drugs charges
while on a study exchange
here at a Red Square
Christmas event in a justice system
that's notoriously corrupt.
His family in Tanzania said
they did not even know he'd been arrested
when they learned
he'd been killed in the war.
since his childhood
Nemes was a very obedient boy.
He wasn't a scamp.
He was a very religious person.
When he was alive,
we never heard about it.
But now that he's dead,
we're told he was arrested
for drug related offenses.
It really hurts us as a family.
he never even had a dream
of becoming a soldier.
His body was returned,
closed entombing yet another story of
how life is thrown away at the front.
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.