The Reuters agency published an investigation about the Russian units “Storm-Z”, where military personnel of the regular army of the Russian Federation are sent as punishment.
Source: Reuters with reference to 13 interlocutors, including 5 soldiers of “Storm-Z”, relatives of soldiers of this detachment and military personnel of other units of the Russian Army
Details: The agency notes that it verified the identities of all soldiers it contacted using criminal records, social media accounts or by talking to their fellow soldiers and families.
One punitive detachment, according to the agency, has about 100-150 people and is part of the regular army units. They are usually sent to “the most vulnerable sectors of the front.”
According to Reuters interlocutors, there are at least several hundred Storm-Z warriors who are now at the front.
Three soldiers in the unit said they were offered salaries of about 200,000 rubles ($2,000) a month, although they said on average they received about half that amount.
The attitude towards them from other departments is not the best. A Russian conscript soldier, who was stationed near Bakhmut in May-June, told the agency that he provided medical assistance to a group of 6-7 wounded Storm-Z soldiers, disobeying his commander’s order to leave them.
According to him, this is a typical example of the attitude of the Russian military towards the soldiers from Storm. He said that “stormtroopers are just meat.”
Although prisoners form the basis of these penal detachments, some soldiers of the Russian regular army are assigned there as punishment.
At the same time, according to Russian legislation on military discipline, a soldier can be transferred to a penal unit only if convicted by a military court. None of those who spoke to Reuters about sending soldiers to Storm-Z said they attended the trial.
The agency notes that the Geneva Convention and the international rules of war do not provide for the punishment of soldiers by their own side.
Reuters also identified two of about 20 Storm-Z soldiers in the Zaporozhye region who refused to return to the front and recorded a video on June 28 complaining about their poor treatment.
One of the fighters in the video said that they “did not receive ammunition, water or food on the front line; the wounded were not taken away, and the dead are still rotting.”
After the video was released, military police beat the two fighters and other members of their unit as punishment for the riot, relatives said.
Since then, they said, both soldiers have told them that conditions of service have improved, but they do not know when the men will be allowed to leave the army.
Reuters verbatim: “There is historical precedent for criminals being taken into combat units: in 1942, as the Red Army was retreating from the Nazi offensive, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered soldiers who panicked or abandoned their posts to be thrown into “penal battalions” deployed in the most dangerous sectors of the front.”
2023-10-03 14:30:53
#Reuters #spoke #soldiers #Russian #StormZ
