United Russia party has its own PMC recruiting mercenaries for war in Ukraine

This is reported by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate.

The Espanola PMC was previously a volunteer unit of Russian football fans within the Vostok battalion. In 2023, Espanola was taken over by Putin's United Russia party. At that time, it was declared a private military company, and active recruitment began for the money of the Russian president's party.

"The Espanola PMC recruits so-called football ultras, Russian radicals of all stripes, including sympathizers of Nazi ideology, as well as ordinary civilians from impoverished regions of the Russian Federation and the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine - the latter are used in meat assaults to create the status of a "combat unit," the intelligence notes.

The Main Intelligence Directorate also noted that at the PMC recruitment centers on the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories, volunteers are promised RUB 220,000 rubles per month for direct participation in hostilities against Ukraine. The contract is signed for at least six months.

People are also lured to the war by insurance payments: a light injury is estimated at RUB 1 million, a moderate injury at RUB 2 million, a serious injury at RUB 3 million, and death at RUB 5 million.

"However, financial motivation is only a wrapper. For most recruits, the first battle is a one-way ticket. The dead and seriously wounded among the recruited cannon fodder are not taken out of the battlefield, but are reported missing in order not to pay relatives rubles for the breadwinner sent to his death by Moscow," the intelligence emphasizes.

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