[7] On June 24, 2023, Vladimir Putin signed a law on the recruitment of convicts to contract service with the Defense Ministry, disbanding Storm-Z and replacing it with the new Storm-V units.
[9] In a September 2022 speech to prisoners, Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group, said that recruits would be used as shock troops, who lead attacks and take heavy casualties.
[2] In November 2023, British intelligence noted that Russian commanders would often punish soldiers who abuse drugs and alcohol by forcing them to fight in Storm-Z detachments.
[15] In August 2023, a convicted criminal freed after fighting with Wagner was arrested on accusations of stabbing six people to death in the town of Derevyannoye [ru] in Russia's Republic of Karelia.
"[4] While many of the Russian prisoners recruited by Wagner and Storm-Z were guaranteed release if they survived their six month term, those who join the new Storm-V units have to serve until the end of the conflict.