Two Russian soldiers have been jailed for refusing to return to the front line in Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) has announced.
In an intelligence update posted on Twitter, the ministry said the two Russian soldiers were sentenced to at least two years in a penal colony by a military court for refusing to obey orders to return to the front in Ukraine.
It comes after Russia’s independent media outlet Mediazona reported that Russia was convicting nearly 100 soldiers a week for refusing to fight.
The Ministry of Defense predicts that “there will be approximately 5,200 convictions per year for refusing to fight” if the trend continues. The high rate of convictions demonstrates the “poor morale” and “reluctance” of Russians to fight in their army, according to the British MoD.
“The refusal to fight probably reflects the lack of training, motivation and high stress situations faced by Russian forces along the entire Ukrainian frontline,” they added.
However, the Ministry of Defense says Russia is likely to mitigate the losses by “sending a mass of poorly trained soldiers to the front line”.
“Following Russia’s partial mobilization in September 2022, Russia adapted its approach to war, using a clean mass for offensive and defensive operations,” the MoD said.
In September 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization of 300,000 military reservists for the war in Ukraine. The draft caused hundreds of thousands of men to flee the country. Outbound flights were full and neighboring countries received a large influx.
Soon after, Putin toughened penalties for desertion and refusal to join the military, making the offenses punishable by up to 10 years in prison or 15 years for voluntary surrender to enemy forces.
But first-time offenders can be exonerated “if they have arranged for their release, returned to their unit or duty, and committed no other crimes while in captivity,” according to the new law.
Within weeks of the Russian troop surge, UK defense chiefs concluded that many of the newly mobilized troops were poorly equipped, possibly with weapons in a “barely serviceable” condition.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Defense suggested that Russian troops were using shovels for hand-to-hand combat in Ukraine due to a shortage of ammunition.
In the latest development in Putin’s war in Ukraine, at least four of Russia’s military transport planes were damaged after Ukraine launched its biggest drone strike on Russian soil since the invasion began.
The Il-76 transport plane was damaged after drones struck an airport in the western Pskov region, located 660 km north of the Ukrainian border and close to the borders of Estonia and Latvia.
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2023-08-31 19:30:00
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