Wagner’s paramilitary organization is considering recruiting female prisoners from Russian prisons and sending them to fight in Ukraine after doing the same with men, its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Wednesday, AFP reported.

“Not only as nurses or operators, but also in sabotage groups or sniper groups. We all know that this has already been done on a large scale,” Prigozhin said.

The Wagnerian leader was clearly referring to women snipers and those who were part of partisan units who fought in the Second World War and who were covered by Soviet propaganda.

“We are working on it. There is resistance, but I think we will overcome it,” Yevgeny Prigozhin added, as quoted by his Telegram press service.

This is how he reacted to the message of a Russian politician from the Urals, who claims that the women held in the prison of the city of Nizhny Tagil were asked to be sent to the Ukrainian front to help the Russian army.

In recent months, Wagner has been suspected of mass recruiting men held in Russian prisons and then sending them to fight on the Ukrainian front in exchange for the promise of pardons and attractive financial incentives.

Since 2014, the group has been accused of pursuing the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime and committing abuses in numerous conflict zones, including Syria and African countries.

In September, Yevgeny Prigozhin, 61, admitted that he founded the organization after years of denials, and that it now operates openly in Russia, a sign of some growing power.