'He's really dangerous' - The convict soldiers go back home

Anatoly Salmin, a convicted thief and murderer, is home from prison years ahead of schedule – his reward for volunteering for a suicide mission in Russia’s war in Ukraine and then managing to survive.

-  Andrew Roth and Pjotr Sauer

Hundreds of convicts recruited into the ranks of Wagner, a private military company tied to the businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, have been killed or severely wounded in Ukraine, where mercenaries are tasked with some of Russia’s most desperate campaigns.

But a video released last month showed several dozen former convicts – among them murderers, drug dealers and domestic abusers – heading home to northern Russia, supposedly having earned pardons by surviving six months in Wagner’s ranks in Ukraine.

In interviews, those who knew Salmin said they feared running into the same man who once terrorised their home town and may now have been made untouchable by his association with Yevgeny Prigozhin, one of Russia’s most notorious figures.

Salmin was recruited into Wagner while serving a sentence for theft. But in 2011 he was convicted of the murder of a friend of his. “He is dangerous,” a local resident who knows Salmin and asked not to be identified told the Guardian. “He stole, got in many fights and was harassing girls. He drank a lot, used drugs and was violent. We don’t want such people back in Pikalevo. What kind of hero is he?”