"For 72 days, I was electrocuted, beaten, and not allowed to eat or sleep."
How convicts are driven into "meat assaults"
In October, Putin signed a law that will greatly simplify the recruitment of convicts or those under criminal prosecution to the front. The contract can now be concluded already at the investigation stage and the Z-regime plans to call up to 40% of prisoners.
In the war, convicts are assigned to so-called "Storm" units, which, according to the website of the Ministry of Deceit, "were created to break through the most difficult and echeloned areas of the defense of the AFU." In fact, stormtroopers, once an well-trained elite unit, are used as expendable material in areas where fighting is the toughest and the most desperate, and they bear the brunt of the infamous “meat-grinder assaults.” Storm units also serve as punishment battalions, where commanders of regular army units exile fighters who, from the point of view of the commanders, are guilty of transgressions.
The Inside spoke to former Storm unit fighters and learned how their commanders had ripped them off, tortured and beaten them, and forced them into suicide assaults. Fearing a long and agonizing death, many shoot themselves even before they are sent to the battlefield.
The Russian army has suffered incredibly high personnel losses since the first day of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Among the reasons are poor coordination and planning. But as Russian prisoners of war and deserters have confirmed, an even more important factor is their commanders’ indifference to the human costs of accomplishing tasks assigned from the top. The approach to fighting has led to the development of “expendable” Russian infantry, whose only purpose is to carry out “meat assaults,” in which the overwhelming majority of the participants will inevitably die. At the same time, as the last year has shown, this tactic does not bring any large-scale achievements, and its final goal is not clear. Yet the top military brass is visibly in no hurry to change it.
In the first months of the full-scale war, Russia's huge losses looked to be unintentional. Starting from the summer of 2022, however, a division became apparent: some soldiers were used for suicidal assaults, while others remained on the second line and performed different tasks.
“Our unit was there to scare the mobilized and volunteers,” says Grigory Kirsanov, one of the prisoners who fought as part of Storm V. “We had a deep hole nearby. Newcomers were beaten and thrown into the pit until they came to their senses."
Read more (English-long read)
@freerussia_report
