Russian President Vladimir Putin's political party has begun recruiting for its own "private military" to fight in the war against Ukraine, according to Ukraine's military intelligence agency (GUR).
Kyiv officials said in a release Wednesday that United Russia, a conservative political party that holds the most seats in Russia's parliament and backs Putin, has started to put together a private military company (PMC) known as Hispaniola. The group was previously a part of the Russian-aligned Vostok battalion, a militant group fighting alongside Moscow's troops in Ukraine's Donetsk region, the GUR said.
Both Russia and Ukraine have suffered heavy losses in the 22-month-long war, and Putin has repeatedly relied on PMC fighters to fortify his front lines. Kyiv estimates that Moscow has lost over a quarter of a million troops in 2023 alone. A declassified U.S. intelligence report in December estimated Russia's losses at 315,000 troops since the war began in February 2022.
In its release, the GUR said, "At Hispaniola recruiting centers operating in the occupied Ukrainian territories, volunteers are promised 220,000 rubles [roughly $2,391] a month for direct participation in hostilities against Ukraine. The contract is for at least half a year."
Before 2023, Hispaniola functioned as a "volunteer unit of Russian football hooligans" within Vostok, the GUR said. The PMC is now funded by and under the control of United Russia.
Kyiv officials said that recruits for Hispaniola are also promised "insurance payments," such as offering 1 million rubles ($10,869) for minor injuries that come from fighting in the war. In addition, PMC recruits are promised 5 million rubles ($54,347) for their dependents in the case of death.
"However, financial motivation serves only as a wrapper," the GUR said. "For most recruits, the first fight is a one-way ticket. The Russians do not take the dead and seriously wounded from among the recruited 'cannon fodder' from the battlefield, they file them as 'missing persons' in order not to pay the relatives rubles for the breadwinner sent by Moscow to die."
Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin via email for comment.
The GUR said in December that Moscow was using forces from the Wagner Group to help train its troops fighting on the front lines in Ukraine.
Wagner, a PMC led by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, fought alongside Russian troops for much of the war in Ukraine and also helped Putin establish a foothold in parts of the Middle East and Africa in recent years.
The mercenary group, which was involved in a failed mutiny in June and whose future is uncertain after Prigozhin's death in a plane crash in August, has been repeatedly accused of committing war crimes.
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