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Vladimir Putin’s de facto political party has been recruiting its own private army to fight in Ukraine, according to Ukrainian military intelligence.
United Russia enlisted members of its company from a unit composed of “football hooligans” which volunteers with a militant group known as the Vostok Battalion, according to the Ukrainian defence ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence.
It claimed the mercenaries were promised 220,000 roubles a month to take part in “meat assaults” against Ukraine with the unit “Espanola”.
“For most recruits, the first fight is a one-way ticket,” the intelligence agency said.
“The Russians do not take the dead and seriously wounded from among the recruited ‘cannon fodder’ from the battlefield.
“They are registered as ‘missing’ in order not to pay the relatives roubles for the breadwinner sent by Moscow to death.”
Putin and United Russia: The president ran as a United Russia nominee in 2012, but changed to independent in 2018. He looks to be running as formally independent again this year, according to Sergei Mironov, the leader of a smaller party, A Just Russia, who wanted him as their candidate.
Nonetheless, United Russia, which has 324 out of 450 seats in the state duma, unanimously backed the president’s bid for re-election in March.
Party chairman Dmitry Medvedev, who was appointed deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council by Mr Putin, referred to the president as “our candidate” and called on party members to “mobilise all activists and supporters” for him.