Kyiv has freed 3,800 prisoners early to plug gaps in its army as military outfits compete to attract suitable convicts

Last year, Volodymyr Prysiazhniuk quarrelled with his father-in-law, Yuriy. Both men were drunk. “I’d had a litre of beer,” Prysiazhniuk recalled. The row escalated and he punched Yuriy twice in the head. The older man fell over – dead. In court Prysiazhuiuk admitted his guilt and told the judge he had called an ambulance. He got eight years for manslaughter.

Prysiazhniuk had reconciled himself to a long period behind bars. In June, however, he walked out of penal colony number 67, in the western Ukrainian town of Sokyriany, and got on to a bus. Several other inmates joined him. They said farewell to the Soviet-era jail, with its guard tower and salmon pink walls, and were driven to a military camp in the south-east of the country.