Several months after Moscow launched its full-scale war against Ukraine, Russian authorities, short on manpower, allowed the Wagner mercenary group to start recruiting inmates from Russian prisons. Many of the prisoners who agreed to enlist had been incarcerated for most of their adult lives. Pavel Zakharov, a 39-year-old from the Republic of Karelia, was granted freedom in January after purportedly spending six months on the battlefield with Wagner. Before his mercenary career, Zakharov was serving an 11-year sentence for brutally murdering his girlfriend’s mother as “revenge” for the way she had treated her daughter. Journalists from the independent media outlet Holod used court records to reconstruct Zakharov’s story. Meduza is publishing an abridged translation of their report.