Today the commandant’s office staff told me outright that the probability of my death now is 80%...”

“Today the commandant’s office staff told me outright that the probability of my death now is 80%. I don’t give a fuck. I’m tired of this fucking bullshit”

This was the last message military medic Lyudmila Poltarakova sent to acquaintances before she was taken away by the military police.

Seven years ago, she received a 15-year prison sentence for selling mephedrone — that was how the woman, who grew up in an orphanage, supported herself and her sister and brother. In 2024, she, along with several dozen other convicted women, signed a contract with the Defense Ministry — so that she could later be released.

In a year and a half at the front, Lyudmila pulled more than 300 wounded soldiers from the battlefield, suffered two injuries, and survived what she says was rape by a regimental commander. And after Lyudmila spoke about extortion and threats of being “zeroed out,” she became a defendant in a new criminal case.

“I can now say with every right that we are all rightless slaves. Want to receive an award for being wounded? You’re a convict, you’re not entitled to it! Want leave after eight months of hellish work on the front line? You’re a convict, you’re not entitled to it! Want simply to rest in a hospital after surviving the front? You’re a convict, you’re not entitled to it! Never before have they rubbed my criminal record in my face so often!”

By her second year at the front, Poltarakova had come to the conclusion that “prison is better than war” and that “even the prison administration” had treated her better. But she was unable to leave the territory of Ukraine.

Together with Poltarakova, Verstka reconstructed the story of the Defense Ministry’s experiment of sending imprisoned women to war. Read it on Verstka’s website (with VPN):

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Verstka

“They didn’t humiliate me in prison colony the way they do in the army”: how the Defense Ministry sends imprisoned women to war

Convicted women at the front face sexual violence, extortion, threats of being “zeroed out,” and commanders’ impunity