Russia's prison population falls as convicts are sent to war

Russia's prison population has decreased by more than 180,000 inmates over five years, a decline partly driven by Moscow's recruitment of prisoners to fight in Ukraine, the head of the country's prison system said May 14.

Arkady Gostev, head of Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service, said Russia now holds 282,000 prisoners, down from 465,000 at the end of 2021, according to state media. The decrease amounts to nearly 40%.

Russia has one of the world's largest prison systems, much of it inherited from the Soviet labor camp network, though its inmate population has declined over the past two decades.

In the four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, authorities have offered prisoners military contracts, allowing them to fight in exchange for a chance to have their sentences canceled — if they survive.

Gostev added that about 85,000 people in the current prison population are being held in pretrial detention.

He also said Russian prison labor was being used to produce goods for the war effort.

"We produce goods for the special military operation (worth) around 5.5 billion rubles ($75 million)," Gostev said, using Moscow's term for its war against Ukraine.

"The volume of production (at prison sites) in 2025 amounted to 47 billion rubles ($642 million)," he said, without specifying how much of that production was for military needs.

Russia has faced deepening labor shortages during the war, with hundreds of thousands of men deployed to the front and many others leaving the country after Moscow announced mobilization. According to a February Reuters report, Russia needs at least 2.3 million workers to fill gaps in its workforce.

In addition to prison labor, Russia has increasingly sought to bring in foreign workers, including North Koreans. South Korean intelligence officials told lawmakers in 2025 that North Korea had sent nearly 15,000 workers to Russia, according to media reports.