Russia is punishing its troops for being drug and mutinous by sending them to Storm-Z human shield squads.
Reports have long held that Russian troops are punished for deserting their posts or for being drunk on duty by being sent to penal units, made up of former convicts.
But now, a soldier shared how on one suicide mission, only 15 members of a 120-strong unit returned from a skirmish with Ukraine.
And multiple have said the Storm-Z troops are treated “just like meat” by Russian military chiefs.
One trooper, from Unit 40318, said that his platoon was deployed near Bakhmut, Ukraine in May and June.
He said he directly disobeyed orders from a commander and gave medical treatment to a group of six or seven wounded Storm-Z.
The soldier then said: “If the commandants catch anyone with the smell of alcohol on their breath, then they immediately send them to the Storm Z squads.”
All but 15 of his unit’s 120 men, embedded with Russia’s 237th regiment, were killed or wounded.
Another group of around 20 fighters on the southern front in Zaporizhzhia also refused to return to Ukrainian battlefield in June.
“On the front line, where we’ve been, we did not get deliveries of ammunition,” a member of the squad said in a video published online.
“We did not get water or food. The injured were not taken away: still now the dead are rotting.”
While the Russian Government has not confirmed Storm-Z troops exist, state media outlets have regularly referred to the groups.
The units fight on the front line, and are often sent over the trenches on highly dangerous missions in waves ahead of regular soldiers and heavy armour.
It comes after video showed the moment Ukrainian special forces wiped out a Russian convoy after stalking it for weeks, according to Ukraine’s General Staff.
The intense video shows the moment the team called in an artillery strike on the Russian targets hidden in a tree line.
Ukraine’s General Staff claimed five Russian infantry fighting vehicles and two trucks were destroyed in the shelling. The footage shows several vehicles alight.
The General Staff said: “In the course of combat tasks in the Zaporizhzhya direction, information about the movement of the opponent’s equipment was received.
“The BpAK Special Operations Forces Group launched an air reconnaissance to identify and confirm targets.”
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