Russian Convict Unit On Zaporizhzhia Front Refuses Order To Deploy

Russian troops have refused to deploy in the past but not usually 'Storm Z' units made up of convicts who can be summarily executed for disobeying. 

Ukrainian and NATO experts are watching this to see if there is an increase in such protests in the wake of the Wagner mutiny and the continued Ukrainian counteroffensive, especially on key fronts like Zaporizhzhia. JL 

Jon Jackson reports in Newsweek:

"They just said we need to go to zero line (front line) at [the Zaporizhzhia region village of] Priyutny to the meat grinder again. Upon arriving to the SMO [special military operation] zone, we had 150 people. After brutal fights, this is all what's left us," showing 20 men standing. The unit was not provided with food, water or sufficient ammunition while stationed on the zero line. "Wounded were not evacuated, the dead are still rotting there. We've served for three months, never been paid." Storm-Z companies (usually former convicts) suffer from "extremely low combat effectiveness, alcoholism, looting, and desertion due to catastrophic losses."

Anew video posted on social media Thursday reportedly shows Russian troops in Ukraine refusing to fight in what one of the men calls the "meat grinder" of the front lines.

WarTranslated, an independent media project that translates materials about the war in Ukraine into English, shared the video on Twitter. In the clip, which had originally appeared on Telegram, one of the soldiers states the date of the recording as June 28 before identifying his brigade as "Storm Company."

"Initially, upon arriving to the SMO [special military operation] zone, we had 150 people. After brutal fights, this is all what's left us," he said, according to WarTranslated's English captions, as the camera pans to show about 20 men standing around him.

The soldier said his unit was not provided with food, water or a sufficient amount of ammunition while they were stationed on the "zero line," another term for the war's front lines.

 

"Wounded were not evacuated, the dead are still rotting there. Terrible orders are given that shouldn't be obeyed. We actually believe we are being simply nullified. We've served for three months, never been paid," he said.

 

"They just came again and said we need to go to zero line at [the Zaporizhzhia region village of] Priyutny to the meat grinder again," the soldier added. "The point of this address is that we'll send it to all our relatives, and we refuse to obey orders for a number of aforementioned reasons."

In conclusion, he said: "We surrender to military police. If any of us die here, it wouldn't be on the zero line. It would mean we were killed by our own here, not in combat."

Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense has previously reported on what it called "Storm-Z" companies, describing the units as being made up of former convicts.

In a June 15 press release, the military intelligence department said Storm-Z companies suffered from "extremely low combat effectiveness." The release also said "alcoholism, looting, and desertion are flourishing" among the Storm troops "due to catastrophic losses."

WarTranslated's post with the video of the Storm company indicated the men could potentially be former prisoners.

"Another portion of Russian convict cannon fodder refusing to obey the orders of their command. The Russian people are 'united like never before,'" the caption for WarTranslated's tweet reads.The video of the troops refusing to obey orders comes after another Storm company aired its grievances about the war on a social media post. The Ukrainian news outlet Obozrevatel reported in March that a Storm assault company addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin directly in a video as they complained that they were not given proper supplies while being put in trenches in Ukraine's Donetsk region.