Drunk recruits. Insubordinate soldiers. Convicts.
They’re among hundreds of military and civilian offenders who’ve been pressed into Russian penal units known as “Storm-Z” squads and sent to the frontlines in Ukraine this year, according to 13 people with knowledge of the matter, including five fighters in the units.
Few live to tell their tale, the people said.
“Storm fighters, they’re just meat,” said one regular soldier from army unit no. 40318 who was deployed near the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine in May and June.
He said he’d given medical treatment to a group of six or seven wounded Storm-Z fighters on the battlefield, disobeying an order from a commander - whose name he didn’t know - to leave the men. He said he didn’t know why the commander gave the order, but claimed that it typified how Storm-Z fighters were considered of lesser value than ordinary troops by officers.
They already did that a few months into the war. They split off a few military units and detailed them to keep the other troop in line. They find and kill deserters, shoot units that disobey orders to advance, and generally do the sorts of things the secret police do.