Vladimir Putin has posthumously decorated a sinister five times murderer as a war hero.
Ruthless gang leader and killer Ivan Neparatov, 34, who led a murderous gang was one of thousands of jailed inmates recruited to fight in Russia’s bloody war in Ukraine.
He had served almost half of a 25-year sentence for multiple murders when he joined the pro-Putin Wagner private army and was posted to the frontline in Ukraine.
A report said he was “quickly liquidated”.
Putin had been accused of recruiting in Russian jails and offering to quash the sentences of murderers, rapists and other serious criminals after they served in Ukraine.
Critics said they were “cannon fodder” and there were indications of a high death rate.
Chess-playing killer Neparatov was posthumously awarded the Order of Courage by Putin.
He posthumously received another order ‘for blood and courage’ from the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic.
He had been serving his jail term at bleak strict regime penal colony No. 6 in Pskov region for murders committed by him and his gang who wore police uniforms and masks.
He had been imprisoned with eight of his gang members for a campaign of murder and terror.
A female victim was strangled in a robbery, while a man was stabbed 88 times.
He was also convicted of kidnapping and robbery.
His death certificate showed he was killed in early August in Artemovsk, Donetsk region by a “gunshot explosive shrapnel penetrating wound to the head”.
Olga Romanova, of Russia Behind Bars, said in some prisons up to 20 per cent of the jail populations had been recruited.
“Approximately 20 per cebt of the prison population is recruited - if there are 1,300 people in prison, 300 are recruited,” she said.
“They are not taken out all at once.
“They take out several squads of 50-60 people at a time.”
The convicts are given two weeks cursory training before being sent to the frontline to take on the Ukrainian army.
