The Ukrainian convicts swapping jail for the front line

At Penal Colony No. 4, there are no easy ways out.

It’s a medium security prison, but the thick iron gates and imposing white walls topped with barbed wire give it a more “maximum” feel.

Inside are Andrii Askerov and Roman Chech: both convicted drug dealers who’ve managed to come up with early escape routes.

They’ve successfully applied to join the ranks of the Ukrainian army. They will go through a month’s training, and, in exchange for being released, will fight “until the war is over”.

“I can’t imagine what it’s like to kill a man, I’ve only seen it in movies,” confesses Andrii, who is 18 months into a six-year stretch.

Getting out of jail is obviously the motivation for the 30-year-old. But he also wants to return to society as a citizen who contributed, rather than a convict who took.

Since the creation of a new law last year, more than 10,000 prisoners have joined the Ukrainian military, including murderers. Those convicted of the most serious crimes however, like multiple killings, sexual violence, corruption and treason, are excluded.

“Everyone will end up on the front line sooner rather than later,” says Roman, who is also swapping his grey prison jumpsuit for military fatigues.

“I would have a lifelong label as a convict, but if I serve, I’d be a serviceman,” he says with a quiet focus.

For the 36-year-old, joining isn’t just about rehabilitation, but revenge too.

“My sister would have been 21 now,” he explains. “She was killed when a Russian missile hit her house in Kharkiv in 2023.”

“Most of all I would like to avenge her.”

According to the government, most of the prisoners who have signed up have volunteered for the infantry, where they’ve taken part in intense fighting.

They will also feed into a new assault force announced by President Volodymyr Zelensky in September. With traditional specialists like marines or paratroopers becoming increasingly redundant on the modern battlefield, this new unit will storm Russian positions with the help of drones.

If these convicts are to taste freedom, they’ll have to fight on some of the most dangerous parts of the front line for an indefinite period.

Not all of them will make it. According to the governor of Penal Colony No. 4, half of the thousand inmates who’ve volunteered so far are already dead.

The series of converted farm buildings in southern Ukraine make for a modest military base, but for the 30 or so injured soldiers here it is a welcome relief.

They’re all ex-prisoners who have returned from eastern battlefields. Oleksii, 37, was fighting in Velyka Novosilka when he sustained a serious-looking leg injury.

“We were hit by artillery, mortar rounds and glide bombs,” he explains. “I didn’t expect so many of my comrades to be killed.”

Oleskii was serving an eight-year sentence for drug smuggling before volunteering to fight. As he perches on his make-shift bed, he tells me why he thinks prisoners make better soldiers than civilians who are mobilised.

“Those who are conscripted, they must tear them away from their mother’s breast!” he exclaims.

“We know how to fight! We know how to fight very well!”

A point driven home by a pile of velcro badges and passports, ripped from the arms and pockets of dead Russian soldiers, which the soldiers have brought back from the front.

“I have a significant score of Russian heads, and I’ve helped hundreds of wounded comrades,” chimes in Andrii Andriichuk.

Also across his torso are the scars from 47 pieces of shrapnel, he tells us. He’s previously fought in the Russian border region of Kursk as part of a Ukrainian offensive.

Before that, he was a career burglar.

After nearly four years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, you get used to meeting troops who are exhausted from spending months or even years on the front lines, as they struggle to contain Russian advances.

Not here. There is palpably high morale, driven by a deep sense of patriotism, and probable relief at getting out of their prison cells.

They admit many former inmates desert once they’re out of prison, but claim the majority want to play their part.

“I’ve committed many evil deeds for this country,” says Andrii. “There is a price to pay for everything. I’ll just go back to the job I’m good at: fighting.”

“I have skills too,” chuckles Oleksii. “I know how to kill. Only here I won’t be convicted for it.”

By the admission of the soldiers who oversee the convicts, these men will need “great luck” to survive until the end of the war. Yet they seemingly wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Russia was criticised when it emptied its own prisons earlier in the war. At least 200,000 have joined its fight, on missions described as “meatgrinders”.

So does Ukraine’s Deputy Justice Minister, Evhen Pikalo, admit the country is doing the same?

“There’s a huge difference: the Russians are paid per hundred metres, and Ukrainians are driven by patriotic feelings,” he claims.

Mr Pikalo sees himself as a reformer within his department, and wants Ukraine to focus more on rehabilitation, instead of punishment, when it comes to criminals.

“Our main goal is to resocialise, to give them a chance. It has nothing to do with the exploitation of the vulnerabilities of these people,” he argues.

“It’s an opportunity for them to defend and protect our country, that’s it.”

On the morality of letting murderers out after a fraction of their sentence, Mr Pikalo stressed they weren’t pardons, but conditional releases.

“Of course we have an emotional component here, but always for some victim’s families, even without the war, sentences are never enough.”

With the passing of time, motivated men are becoming harder for Ukraine to find. With peace ever-distant, its search will only go deeper.

Additional reporting by Volodymyr Lozhko, Rebecca Hartmann and Anastasiia Levchenko