A man convicted in the killing of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov has been discharged from jail after signing a contract to join the military operation in Ukraine, state-run news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti reported on Saturday. In 2017, a Russian court sentenced five men to prison terms ranging from 11 and 20 years for his murder. Among them was Tamerlan Eskerkhanov, who was convicted as an accomplice and jailed for 14 years. “Eskerkhanov signed a contract with the defense ministry in March 2024, was pardoned, and then released from his penal colony,” TASS cited a source in law enforcement agencies as saying. Russia’s defense ministry has since adopted the tactic, forming its Storm-Z units partly out of convict volunteers recruited directly from prisons.

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Persons: Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltsin, Tamerlan Eskerkhanov, “ Eskerkhanov, “, Ilya Yashin, ”, Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin Organizations: RIA Novosti Locations: Ukraine, Kremlin, Russia, Belarus, United States, Russian