Russia Uses Convicts To Absorb Ukraine Fire: Those Refusing To Advance Are Shot

The Russian/Wagner troops at Bakhmut and Soledar have as much - or more - to fear from their own side as they do from the Ukrainians. JL

Jake Epstein and John Haltiwanger report in Business Insider:

Russia is using prisoners and freshly mobilized troops to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire along the war's front lines in order to clear the way for its better trained forces to take ground. Moscow's current tactic of "trading individuals for bullets" has been used on the battlefield throughout Russian history. "Those who disobey are eliminated and it's done publicly." There are "squadrons of liquidators" that deal with troops considered to be problematic. Many Russian prisoners sent to the front line by Wagner are drug addicts and "completely insane." Some "are fucked up and bulldoze their way through." These fighters "are very different from ordinary mercenaries." The higher up is killed if his team deserts.

Russia is using prisoners and freshly mobilized troops to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire along the war's front lines in order to clear the way for its better trained forces to take ground, a US official said, calling the move a classic Russian tactic. 

Prisoners recruited by the Wagner Group — a notorious paramilitary organization with close ties to the Kremlin — and others have recently been deployed to the forefront of fighting around eastern Ukraine's war-torn city of Bakhmut, which has become the epicenter of hostilities between Moscow and Kyiv.  

These recruits have been forced to "take the brunt" of Ukrainian firepower in the area before they are replaced by "better trained forces" who move in behind them to try and claim territory, a senior US military official told reporters on Monday.

The official added that Moscow's current tactic of "trading individuals for bullets" has been used on the battlefield throughout Russian history. Russia, for example, did this with conscripts who were sent into the Chechnya region during the First Chechen War of the mid-1990s.

 

The senior military official described fighting in the area around Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of over 73,000 people, as "really severe and savage." They said rolling exchanges of artillery fire are often followed up with maneuvers by "people that are not their best fighters."

"You're talking about thousands upon thousands of artillery rounds that have been delivered between both sides," the official said. In many cases, they said, there may be "several thousand artillery rounds in a day that are being exchanged."

Britain's defense ministry shared in a Tuesday intelligence update that Russian and Wagner forces have been able to advance into the town of Soledar, just a few miles north of Bakhmut. It added that Moscow is likely to use this access to attempt to approach Bakhmut from the north, though it is unlikely to "imminently" do so because Ukraine has control of its supply routes and has held solid defensive lines.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a nightly address on Monday that Russia has concentrated its "greatest efforts" on Soledar.

"And what did Russia want to gain there? Everything is completely destroyed, there is almost no life left. And thousands of their people were lost," he said. "The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes. This is what madness looks like."

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, wrote in a recent analysis that Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leader of Wagner, has used the mercenary group's achievements in Soledar as a way to demonstrate that it's the one force that is able of finding any success in Ukraine.

Laura Cooper, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, acknowledged at a Friday briefing that Wagner has been able to move at a "more rapid clip" than other units in the Russian military.

 

However, even Prigozhin has said that capturing Bakhmut will be a challenge. In a video published to social media earlier this month, the Wagner founder said that the city features layers of defense and that his fighters lack the necessary heavy armor and equipment.

Captured Russian inmates who have been sent to the front lines in Ukraine as part of the Wagner Group, an infamous mercenary organization with ties to the Kremlin, say they've witnessed public executions of deserters and disobedient troops, per a new report from Polygon Media and the independent Mozhem Obyasnit outlet. 

"Those who disobey are eliminated — and it's done publicly," Yevgeny Novikov, a former inmate who was recruited by the mercenary group said, according to a translation of the report from the Daily Beast.

Novikov said there are "squadrons of liquidators" that deal with troops considered to be problematic.

In one instance, Novikov reportedly recalled, "shelling began, one of the prisoners laid down and didn't cover his own [men]. The shelling stopped, he went back, and the higher-up shouted to him: 'Why didn't you go forward?' And they killed him. The higher-up is killed if his team deserts."Alexander Drozdov, another former inmate cited in the report, said many of the Russian prisoners sent to the front line in Ukraine by Wagner are drug addicts and "completely insane." While some recruited prisoners may desert or disobey orders, others "are just fucked up and bulldoze their way through," Drozdov said, noting that these fighters "are very different from ordinary mercenaries."

The first batch of prisoners to survive six months of fighting in Ukraine was recently released back into Russia, with the head of the mercenary group celebrating them as heroes deserving of great respect while also advising them not to drink too much, do drugs, rape women, or kill.

The Russian military has suffered staggering losses since Moscow launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine last February. In an effort to address worsening manpower issues, the Wagner Group has fought alongside the Russian military and has recruited Russian prisoners in the process. 

Last month, a top Ukrainian military advisor said that Russian prisoners fighting with Wagner were being shoved to the front line and "killed in big quantities."

Russian forces have been pushing hard to take the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region and have managed to make some advances into the nearby town of Soledar in recent days, according to assessments from the US military and British defense ministry.