INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russia's oil pipeline monopoly Transneft sent hundreds of its employees to fight in Ukraine last summer as the Kremlin struggled to recruit
Russia's regions to join a volunteer military battalion called BARS-20.Among them was Alexei Saispaev, a Transneft security guard from the
battalions, private mercenary groups and drafted reservists to prosecute its war as its conventional army's numbers have been
depleted.Transneft's volunteer enlistment drive appears to have taken place in several of Russia's regions and was aimed at recruiting
close to Transneft told the outlet that last year's volunteer recruitment drive was not the first in the company's history, saying that it
had allegedly formed military detachments during the Second Chechen War.
