Russia’s army in Ukraine is turning on itself, with escalating reports of soldiers deliberately slaughtering their own comrades amid the brutal ‘meat grinder’ offensive that costs 1,000 lives each day
A new alarming report from the Ukraine shines a spotlight on horrific killings by Russian officers and recruits of their fellow soldiers, not only to stop them fleeing the bloodbath but, sometimes, just for sport. In one blood-chilling incident, six soldiers were reportedly slaughtered in cold blood as they advanced on the enemy line, machinegunned by their comrades and left to die in the frozen mud.
However, Ukrainian intelligence claims that undertrained conscripts are frequently buckling amid the chaos of battle and butchering their fellow Russians.
Western officials estimate that Moscow has now suffered more than 350,000 casualties – killed or wounded – since February 2022 when Putin’s invasion began.
Russia is believed to be losing around 1,000 men a day on some sectors of the front they call the “meat grinder”. Commanders reportedly shoot their own men, not only for refusing orders or failing to pay bribes but, sometimes, just for fun, the Daily Mail reported.
Moreover, soldiers are allegedly being forced to fight each other to the death. Amid horrendous casualties, with 800-strong units returning from the battlefield with fewer than 100 men, Moscow has reportedly replaced the dead with prisoners, the middle-aged and the disabled, physically and mentally, simply to keep the trenches manned.
Ukrainian forces have intercepted two Russian marines, who have reportedly admitted: ‘We are not fighting a war. We are being fed to it,’ they said.
An incident from near Vuhledar, the graveyard of some of Russia’s elite naval infantry brigades, reveals the brutality now infecting the Russian war machine. After a group of men refused to climb out of their trench to assault the Ukrainian guns, their commander reportedly ordered his soldiers to haul two of them into a shell crater at gunpoint.
Footage that is said to have been recovered later from a phone shows them fighting hand to hand while others had to watch. The winner would subsequently be allowed to rejoin the unit.
According to the report, the loser would be shot for “cowardice”. But the victor was reportedly shot anyway.
“David, it was Gladiator directed by sadistic, drunken conscripts,” said a Ukrainian source. Chaos is reported to be as deadly as cool-blooded murder to the north near Kupyansk, where units of convicts, conscripts, and half-trained reservists are collapsing from exhaustion and fear.
In the course of one night attack, a drunken brawl between two groups escalated into a gunfight. When it ended, five Russians were reportedly dead, killed by their own side.
A field medic who attempted to intervene was also reportedly shot through the throat as “a spy”. Russian-on-Russian fire has reached such levels that Ukrainian officers sometimes are said to hold back when firefights break out in this sector.
“If they want to thin their own ranks,” one told the reporter, “we let them.” Britain’s Ministry of Defence believes “barrier troops” are stationed at the rear to stop Russian deserting or retreating.
These “zagradotryady” are now under the merciless Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Nevertheless, Russian military courts have reportedly processed over 11,000 cases of desertion or failure to obey a superior order over the three years since mobilisation began.
This high total suggests institutional collapse, although the Kremlin continues to pour replacements to the front.
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.
#Putins #savage #army #officers #kill #men #sport #fight #death
