Employees of the administration of the Frunzen district of St. Petersburg tried to recruit homeless people for the war in Ukraine, Novaya Gazeta reports.

Russian public officials visited the shelters of a public organization that helps the homeless, offering them to sign military contracts. Employees of the NGO informed about the events.

One of them reported that local government officials tried to talk to the homeless, offering them leaflets and information about military contracts. The employee of the NGO also reported that the administrator of the shelter in which he works did not let the officials in and offered to contact the management.

They eventually left, but officials in St. Petersburg then sent leaflets to NGO representatives offering to enlist.

“We have always stood aside from religion and politics, so we cannot help them in any way,” said Tetyana Bazhenova, a representative of the “Nochlezhka” public organization in question.

Russian officials confirmed that they wanted to recruit homeless people into the armed forces

The administration of the St. Petersburg district confirmed to the Russian website “Rotonda” that its employees visited the shelter, but said that the action was the result of an individual initiative “to share information about the contract service with everyone who can.”

Kamil Galeyev, a Russian journalist and scholar at the Wilson Center who has published several analyzes of Russian society and other topics related to Russia since the start of the war on February 24, wrote on Twitter that the example was “very telling.”

“First of all, it shows their desperation in personnel. In the second, it shows how the bureaucracy works. Quantitative targets will be met. Although qualitatively… Thirdly, the superiors are not responsible for the actions of their employees. It all depends on their “personal initiative,” he says.

Russian investigative journalists wrote from the beginning of July that Wagner’s mercenary group began recruiting convicts from Russian prisons for the war in Ukraine, promising them money and pardons.

Also in July, Wagner’s group, which the Kremlin has always denied was working for the Russian state before the start of the war in Ukraine, also began recruiting in the former Soviet states of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.