A Russian serial killer serving two life sentences for his brutal crimes has said he wants to be released from prison to join Vladimir Putin's forces fighting in Ukraine.
Mikhail Popkov, 58, is an ex-policeman who was convicted in 2015 of the sexual assault and murder of dozens of women between 1992 and 2010 in Angarsk and Irkutsk, in Siberia, and Vladivostok in Russia's Far East.
In 2018, he confessed to further crimes taking the total number of victims to 78, although he has confessed to and is suspected of at least 83 killings.
Despite his sentence, Russian authorities allowed state television to interview Popkov who is nicknamed "the Werewolf" and the "Angarsk Maniac."
Russian authorities have tapped prisons for inmates to fight on the front line in Putin's invasion of Ukraine and are reportedly offering to waive their sentences if they survive six months.
Popkov said he would like to be part of the scheme and when asked by the Vesti news channel "What is your dream?" he responded, "to get into the army."
He said that he recognized fighting in Ukraine "is not a computer game" and that "these are not fiction books about superheroes."
"Realistically, how would I manage to live through January and February, for me the coldest frosts are the worst," he said, adding he "would not hesitate" to join Russian forces in Ukraine.
"Taking into consideration my military specialization, I think it is in quite high demand now," he said although admitted he would need to learn new skills.
"Even though I have been in prison for 10 years, I don't think it would be so hard to learn new skills," added Popkov, who was arrested in 2012.
He did not specify what his military experience was and reports say that he has only worked in the police and as a security guard.
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service for comment.
The role convicts are playing in Putin's invasion has come to the fore regarding those in the Wagner Group of mercenaries financed by Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin. On Tuesday, Prigozhin claimed that a fourth round of prisoners who had completed their contracts with the group had received pardons.
One Wagner commander, Andrei Medvedev, who escaped the group and fled to Norway, has described how prisoners "are used as cannon fodder, like meat."
In October, Russian human rights activist Olga Romanova said that more than 20,000 Russian prisoners had been sent to war in Ukraine and that Wagner had recruited from penal colonies in the European part of Russia as well as in the Ural region.
She had said in August that remand prisoners who had not faced trial were also being recruited.
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About the writer
Brendan Cole is a Newsweek Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. His focus is Russia and Ukraine, in particular ... Read more
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