this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
205 points (96.4% liked)

World News

39145 readers
3867 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Drunk recruits. Insubordinate soldiers. Convicts.

They're among hundreds of military and civilian offenders who've been pressed into Russian penal units known as "Storm-Z" squads and sent to the frontlines in Ukraine this year, according to 13 people with knowledge of the matter, including five fighters in the units.

Few live to tell their tale, the people said.

"Storm fighters, they're just meat," said one regular soldier from army unit no. 40318 who was deployed near the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine in May and June.

He said he'd given medical treatment to a group of six or seven wounded Storm-Z fighters on the battlefield, disobeying an order from a commander - whose name he didn't know - to leave the men. He said he didn't know why the commander gave the order, but claimed that it typified how Storm-Z fighters were considered of lesser value than ordinary troops by officers.

top 10 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] FuglyDuck 58 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I got bad news for the regular army guy…. He’s just meat to the officers, too. Maybe the difference between chicken and turkey.

[–] grabyourmotherskeys 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've got bad news for humans that are not rich and powerful...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i've got bad news for the rich russians too...

[–] Sanctus 3 points 1 year ago

Its just meat all the way down

[–] cyd 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

They already did that a few months into the war. They split off a few military units and detailed them to keep the other troop in line. They find and kill deserters, shoot units that disobey orders to advance, and generally do the sorts of things the secret police do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The soldier, who requested anonymity because he feared prosecution in Russia for publicly discussing the war, said he had sympathy for the men's plight: "If the commandants catch anyone with the smell of alcohol on their breath, then they immediately send them to the Storm squads."

The penal squads, each about 100-150 strong and embedded within regular army units, have typically been sent to the most exposed parts of the front and often sustain heavy losses, according to Reuters interviews with the people, who identified at least five Storm-Z teams fighting to repel a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east and south.

The deployment of such squads marks a departure for Russia in Ukraine: while the Wagner mercenary group - now being disbanded after a June mutiny - sent convicts to fight on the frontline, the Storm-Z units come under the direct command of the defence ministry.

There is historical precedent for military offenders being pressed into fighting units; in 1942, when the Red Army was retreating from a Nazi advance, Soviet leader Josef Stalin ordered soldiers who panicked or left their posts into "punishment battalions" deployed to the most dangerous parts of the front, according to a decree he signed.

Artyom Shchikin, a 29-year-old from the Mordovia region in central Russia, was serving a two-year sentence for robbery handed down in December 2021 when defence ministry recruiters came to his jail asking if inmates wanted to go and fight in Ukraine, according to court records and two of his relatives.

By May this year, Shchikin was assigned to a penal unit within the 291st Guards Motorised Rifle Regiment and deployed to the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine, where Kyiv's forces are trying to break through Russian defences, the relatives added.


The original article contains 1,711 words, the summary contains 290 words. Saved 83%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!