‘Putin’s Chef’ Suddenly Has a Lot to Say About Twisted New War Effort The move followed two months of failed attempts to seize the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk. Prigozhin-whose nickname “Putin’s chef” dates from his earlier catering contracts with the Kremlin-started recruiting Russian prisoners in July. “Prisoners in the Wagner mercenary army have no chance to survive, ‘the Shamed’ are dying as if they are pushed through a meat grinder,” Olga Romanova, the founder of the Russia Behind Bars group of independent prison observers, told The Daily Beast. Both prison administrators and other convicts use the label to sexually abuse or urinate on weaker prisoners, who are made to tackle the worst jobs like cleaning the toilets and are treated as though they are contagious outcasts. The prisoners of this lowly caste live nightmarish lives behind bars in Russian corrective and labor colonies. Although he was ‘Shamed,’ he was a good guy.” “Most of them are not alive any longer another ‘Shamed’ guy Sashka Shabanov has been killed. “He is one of the ‘the Shamed ’ his face was ripped up in a drone explosion, we spoke on a video call,” the prisoner explained on tape. One of his friends, who was seriously wounded, called IK-7 from his hospital bed. The group was under fire near Bakhmut last week. She calls on government leaders to “allow us to LIVE like human beings.In an audio message provided to The Daily Beast, a convict in the IK-7 prison colony in Novgorod says his recruited friends were “thrown into the battle” after just one week of training. Last month, she posted an essay in which she depicts the regime as holding the rope that is hanging the Cuban people. In a December post, for example, he asserted that the Cuban government has “more than demonstrated its inability to build a society that is not only prosperous, but one capable of responding to the most basic aspirations of the human being.” In the same post he also provides numerous reasons why there is no religious freedom in Cuba, as the regime absurdly claims.Īnother brave critic is Sister Nadieska Almeida, superior of the Daughters of Charity in Cuba, who also has posted numerous critical reflections on Facebook. He frequently posts on Facebook hard-hitting reflections denouncing the regime. Those who care about human rights, and specifically religious freedom in Cuba, should hope that the Cuban Catholic bishops do not bow to one concession that the ORA has likely asked for: the silencing of brave priests and nuns who have publicly spoken out against the regime’s grave human-rights abuses.įather Alberto Reyes, in Camagüey, is one of these priests. Sadly, it is likely that Cuba’s leaders see as a possible model what Nicaragua did with 222 of its high-profile political prisoners in February - deporting them to the United States and stripping them of their citizenship and property. He conveyed Pope Francis’ wishes for a “positive response” regarding the prisoners. The possibility of a prisoner release was raised earlier this year during Italian Cardinal Benaimino Stella’s visit. Of the hundreds imprisoned and prosecuted, several dozen are minors - a particularly flagrant injustice that has been widely denounced by the international community. Bishops had requested this meeting for more than two years, and it reportedly covered issues of common interest, including the socioeconomic crisis that afflicts the island.Įspecially noteworthy, however, was that they discussed a potential release of prisoners jailed during the historic protests of July 11, 2021, when thousands of Cubans took to the streets to protest food shortages and power cuts, and to demand libertad. April 27, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba held a meeting with senior officials of the Cuban communist regime, including President Miguel Díaz-Canel. Dozens of people wave Cuban flags during a demonstration at Versailles Cuban restaurant in Miami, in solidarity with the thousands of Cubans who took to the streets to protest on, July 11, 2021.ĭaniel A.
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