CNN
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Paul Whelan, the American wrongfully detained in Russia for five and a half years, revealed on Sunday that he had passed on to Western officials information he received from fellow detainees fighting for Russia on the front lines in Ukraine.

“The prisoners from the camp who went to the front line had communications. And they would communicate with us. And the communications from them I gave back to the four governments,” Whelan said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” referring to the U.S., U.K., Canada and Ireland — the four countries of which he has citizenship.

Whelan added that he and others were able to communicate with former prisoners through “burner” phones that they were able to purchase even while in the Russian labor camp in Mordovia.

“Through illegal cell phones,” Whelan said. “Yes, we had burner phones.”

Whelan added that the guards “looked the other way” in exchange for goods such as cigarettes.

‘A Russian prison guard gets three to four hundred dollars a month. You give him a pack of cigarettes and you can do just about anything you want,” Whelan added.

During his years of detention, consular officials from the four governments met regularly with Whelan to check on him and provide updates on efforts to secure his release.

Whelan said 450 prisoners from his camp went to fight in Ukraine as part of the recruitment efforts of mercenaries, including the Wagner Group, which brought in tens of thousands of prisoners from prisons across Russia to bolster Russia’s brutal invasion. His camp consisted mainly of young men from Central Asian countries such as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, Whelan said.

“450 went from my camp. I knew them all. Some of them are dead. Some are missing arms and legs. They all have some kind of PTSD. They went through a traumatic experience,” he said. “They were used on the front lines to walk through minefields. They were used as cannon fodder. They would be sent out on patrols to try to draw enemy fire. That’s what Russia is doing to these people. And they are all young. Putin is throwing away a generation of his youth in Ukraine for nothing.”

Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, was released earlier this year as part of a major prisoner swap between the United States and Russia. A total of eight people were sent back to the Kremlin in exchange for the release of 16 people in Russian custody, including four Americans, in the historic exchange that resulted from years of complicated behind-the-scenes negotiations involving the US. , Russia and Germany.

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.