They Left Town as Convicts. Will They Be Buried as Heroes?

When the corpse of a Wagner mercenary fighter arrived in his small Russian village in late February after he was killed fighting in Ukraine, some residents wanted to give him a hero’s burial. Others could not forget that the former prisoner had stabbed his father to death.

Disputes like this one are erupting across Russia as convicts killed in the war are returned to their hometowns — dividing villages and pitting neighbors against one another. The diverging viewpoints underscore the difficult moral calculations involved in releasing criminals to fight for their country. Read more

@nytimes