you mean, the local UA loyalists assassinating the Russian sympathisers who are put into power by the invaders? That cannot be surprising…
I didn’t say it was surprising.
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I can just imagine the Wagner’s sales pitch to the prisoners
"we’ll give you guns, rations and set you loose in the Ukraine countryside. follow the orders of your commanders, rape and pillage and kill them to your heart’s content. "
Here is a sales pitch. Gloomy
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Morale issues
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More on the Berdyansk assassination
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Fucking hell
And then this. Found these on a Russian military forum.
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Only the best people … and they wonder why they are getting their asses kicked.
The sad part is that once upon a time I might have assumed this was satire…
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Hmm this sounds a little far-fetched to me. I know it’s a popular story, because of Enemy at the Gates, that the Soviets would machine gun their own soldiers to keep them on the frontline but it’s not actually true (they’d execute them for cowardice but it wasn’t done on the battlefield - similar to what the British did in WW1).
The idea that they’re still employing blocking units to reduce retreat… ok I can buy that, but the idea that those blocking units are summarily executing troops and leaving them in open graves I struggle with. Seems more likely those soldiers were dead when they were left, or were executed by Ukrainian soldiers after being left by their comrades.
You may not believe they are employing barrier troops, but many sources report this, including some Russians posted above, say they do and many Russian military bloggers have been calling out for it to reduce collapse. It is not possible yet to prove using objective sources that they have employed barrier troops that have shot own troops during this particular offensive, but DPR and LNR did so in 2014, when Igor Girkin was in command. He had several people shot for cowardice.
Prigozhin also stated bluntly to Wagner recruits that they would be shot if they retreated. This is well documented.
You will note that no one has claimed that they have been been shooting swathes of troops. But a few ? That has happened before, and I have absolutely no great doubt it has happened now; because they are employing Barrier Troops at some scale (but we don’t know the scale) and the nature of the retreat was highly chaotic.
I haven’t watched the movie the Enemy at the Gates as it is not regarded to be a good war movie. I am a bit picky about War movies, as my own meagre conscription service made most of them completely uninteresting to watch due to too much unrealistic nonsense. NKV used barrier troops extensively in World War 2 and liqjuidated quite a few (but not enormous numbers). Most were arrested, charged with offenses and then got various sentences, quite often to Penal batallions. Many were also executed.
I don’t belive they are shooting hundreds of soldiers, nor do any source report that. But that a few have been shot for cowardice and treasonous behviour is makes sense if you read the reports posted somehwere above about certain orders from the Eastern Military District. But it was a panicky retreat from Iziyum pocket and that may be the reason some were summary shot by barrier troops and not arrested as such, if it did indeed happen.
But many Russian sources have claimed that wounded Russian soldiers have been killed by their own previously so they would not be captured, if they were in no shape to retreat. But I can’t prove it of course.
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