MOSCOW, February 17. /TASS/. Ukrainian Justice Minister Denis Malyuska has suggested recruiting prisoners to carry out construction work for the armed forces.

"It is hard for me to imagine how the Ukrainian Armed Forces would be in danger if its ranks include people who were convicted of a traffic violation, when the consequences were unintentional, or people who, for example, committed a corruption-related offense. They will certainly not kill their fellow soldiers with an assault rifle. Moreover, it should be understood that the military now needs people not only to take up arms to defend the Motherland. There’s a need to do a lot of things to help those who defend the homeland, including building different infrastructure-related things. If we do not want, or we cannot, or consider it a risk to give them an assault rifle, let us give them a shovel," he said on Rada television.

Malyuska reiterated that "we can safely mobilize and send to the battlefield" at least 50,000 people who have criminal records.

Ukraine announced general mobilization in February 2022 and repeatedly extended it. It is not the first time that the Justice Ministry has called to recruit prisoners. The new bill on mobilization, which was adopted by the Ukrainian legislature in the first reading on February 7, stipulates registration of previously convicted people with conscription offices, and also provides for voluntary enlistment of convicts that serve suspended sentences.