To avoid calling another controversial mobilization and risk angering the public ahead of presidential elections next year, Russia's military has relied increasingly on prison recruitment to bolster its ranks, a tactic pioneered by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the late Wagner Group mercenary boss.
According to rights activists, the Russian Defense Ministry has enlisted as many as 100,000 people this year by scouring prison colonies and offering to chop off years from the sentences of people convicted of some of the country's most gruesome crimes.
But then Pekhteleva's bereaved mother, Oksana, received a photo of Kanyus - not in prison but in a military uniform surrounded by other Russian soldiers. Her daughter's murderer was pardoned by President Vladimir Putin in exchange for taking up arms in Ukraine.
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