Daghestani pre-trial detention centre sends six women to fight in Ukraine

Six women from a pre-trial detention centre in Daghestan’s capital city Makhachkala have signed a contract with the Russian Defence Ministry to be sent to the frontlines in Ukraine.

The information was reported on Thursday by a member of the Public Chamber of Daghestan, Shamil Khadulaev.

That same day, Daghestani activist Larisa Bachieva also shared a series of videos featuring the women on the Russian social media platform VKontakte.

One of them, filmed in the Makhachkala pre-trial detention centre, shows three women dressed in military camo. Their names were not given and their faces were indistinguishable. A second video shows women dressed in the same military outfits hugging their relatives. It was clear from the context that the women are leaving for the frontlines in Ukraine.

Speaking to OC Media, Khadulaev could not list the articles of the criminal code under which the women were charged, but noted that at least two of them were accused of murder. The others have also been accused of committing serious crimes. Where and in what capacity the women will serve, Khadulaev also does not know.

‘At least one of them has children. There was such a touching scene of saying goodbye to them,’ Khadulaev noted.

There have only been a few known cases of military recruitment from women’s prisons.

According to Olga Romanova, the head of the prisoners rights organising Sitting Russia, recruitment began in August 2023.  However, most of the women, although they signed a contract with the Russian Defence Ministry, remained in the penal colonies.

That same month, the Russian-language opposition media outlet SOTA wrote about the prisoners of Lipetsk colony No. 7, who were recruited by the Ministry of Defence. According to the article, 30 women went to war at once, having signed a contract for two years of service. There was no confirmation of this information, however, making the women prisoners from Makhachkala the first demonstrably documented case of women being recruited and sent to the frontlines in Ukraine.

In October 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing defendants to be released from criminal liability if they sign a military service contract or are mobilised. Previously, only those already convicted in criminal cases had the legal possibility to be exempted from punishment by being sent to war.

Read in Azerbaijani on Meydan TV.