In a month spent on the entrance line, Aleksandr, an ex-convict serving within the Russian Army, hadn’t seen a single Ukrainian soldier and had barely fired a shot. The menace of loss of life got here from a distance, and seemingly from all over the place.
Sent to protect towards a possible river crossing in southern Ukraine, his swiftly shaped unit, made up nearly completely of inmates, endured weeks of relentless bombardment, sniper assaults and ambushes. The marshy, flat terrain supplied no cowl past the burned-out hulks of cottages. He stated he had watched canines gnaw on the uncollected corpses of his useless comrades, drunk rain water and scavenged rubbish dumps for meals.
Aleksandr claims that out of the 120 males in his unit, solely about 40 stay alive. These survivors are being closely pressured by the Russian army to stay on the battlefield on the finish of their six-month contracts, in line with Aleksandr and accounts supplied to The New York Times from two different Russian inmates combating on the entrance line.
“We are being sent to a slaughter,” Aleksandr stated in a sequence of audio messages from the Kherson area, referring to his commanders. “We are not human to them, because we are criminals.”
His account gives a uncommon window into the combating in Ukraine from a Russian inmate’s perspective. Units made up of convicts have develop into one of many cornerstones of Russian army technique because the extended combating has decimated the nation’s common forces. Aleksandr’s descriptions couldn’t be independently confirmed, however they aligned with accounts from Ukrainian troopers and Russian prisoners of warfare who stated that Moscow used inmates primarily as cannon fodder.
The troopers’s accounts have been obtained by voice messages during the last two weeks, some in direct interviews and a few by messages supplied by relations and buddies. Their final names, private particulars and army models have been withheld to guard them towards retribution.
Aleksandr’s testimony conveys the brutality imposed on Russian convicts, and the human value Moscow is ready to keep up management of the occupied territory.
The Russian Defense Ministry started to enroll 1000’s of inmates from the nation’s jails in particular models known as “Storm Z” in February, after taking on a jail recruitment mannequin utilized by the Wagner personal army firm within the first 12 months of the warfare.
Aleksandr stated he had enlisted in March, shortly after receiving an extended jail time period for murder in central Russia. He left at dwelling a spouse, a daughter and a new child son, and was fearful that he wouldn’t survive the torture and extortions in his jail.
Like different inmate fighters, he was promised a month-to-month wage of $2,000 at at the moment’s change price, and freedom on the finish of his six month contract, a duplicate of which he shared with The Times.
Wagner claims that 49,000 inmates fought for its pressure in Ukraine, and that 20 p.c of them died. Former fighters have described brutal disciplinary measures imposed by the paramilitary group. .
However, Wagner survivors have additionally broadly stated that they have been capable of gather wages and return dwelling after six months as free males. To raise the recruitment numbers, Wagner additionally labored to rehabilitate the inmates within the eyes of Russian society, presenting their army service as a patriotic redemption.
Yet by February, Wagner had misplaced entry to prisons throughout an influence wrestle with the army excessive command, permitting the Defense Ministry to supplant them when it comes to recruiting convicts.
The dimension and casualty charges within the Russian military’s personal inmate models are unknown. However, a tally of the nation’s warfare deaths collected by the BBC and Mediazona, an unbiased news outlet, reveals that inmates grew to become essentially the most frequent Russian casualties beginning this spring, underlining the oversize contribution they’ve made to the nation’s warfare effort.
The testimony of Aleksandr and three different former inmates reveals how convict models have advanced underneath the direct management of the Russian Army. The Times obtained Aleksandr’s contact info by a Russian rights activist, Yana Gelmel, and verified his and different inmates’ identities utilizing publicly out there court docket data and interviews with their kinfolk and buddies.
They have described irregular wage funds that fell far in need of the quantities promised to them by the state and an incapacity to gather compensation for accidents. Aleksandr additionally stated that his officers had explicitly prevented males in his unit from amassing useless comrades from the battlefield.
He claimed that this was executed to stop their households from claiming compensation, as a result of the useless troopers could be registered as lacking quite than as killed in motion.
“There were bodies everywhere,” Aleksandr stated, describing the combating on the banks of the Dnipro River in May. “No one was interested in collecting them.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defense didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Aleksandr additionally claimed that his officers used threats and intimidation to pressure surviving inmates to stay on the entrance for one more 12 months after the top of their contracts. Another inmate soldier at the moment serving on the Zaporizhzhia entrance additional east stated that his contract had obliged him to stay in Ukraine for an extra 12 months after acquiring his pardon, this time as an expert soldier.
All inmates spoke of colossal casualties of their models and of their commanders’s seeming disregard for his or her lives.
“Every day, we live like on top of a powder barrel,” Aleksandr stated. “They tell us, ‘You are nobodies, and your name is nothing.’”
After a month of coaching close to the occupied metropolis of Luhansk, Aleksandr stated he was despatched along with his unit to carry a line of former vacation properties close to the Antonovskiy Bridge, an space that Ukraine has been focusing on with hit-and-run assaults since Russia’s forces withdrew to the east financial institution of the Dnipro in November.
They spent the subsequent three and a half weeks underneath fixed bombardment from the invisible enemy, who shelled their uncovered positions from throughout the river and focused them with snipers and in night time ambushes. Enemy drones continuously hovered within the air.
The goal of their mission was unclear to them; they have been advised to easily stay of their positions. They had no heavy weapons and no means to defend themselves towards Ukrainian assaults.
“I’m running around with an automatic gun like an idiot. I haven’t made a single shot, I haven’t seen a single enemy,” a former inmate from Aleksandr’s unit named Dmitri, who’s now deceased, stated in a voice message on the time. “We are just a bait to expose their artillery positions.” The message was shared with The Times by Dmitri’s spouse.
“Why the hell do I need to be here? To sit around and shake like a rabbit because shells keep on exploding all around you?” Dmitri stated in one of many messages.
Aleksandr stated his unit had been left with out meals and water for days after asking their commanders to be relieved, forcing them to scavenge for ration biscuits and drink rain water handled with chlorine.
In late May, Aleksandr was despatched on a mission to mine a riverbank. His unit was hit by a Ukrainian howitzer shell, which detonated close by mines.
All of the opposite males in his detachment died immediately, he stated; Aleksandr was injured.
“It was raining, and I fell into a puddle,” he stated, describing the assault. “I crawled away bit by bit and then covered myself with some rubble, because I knew they would finish me off.” He stated he had managed to ship textual content messages to his unit earlier than shedding consciousness.
The subsequent day, he was dragged out by his comrades and evacuated to a hospital in Crimea. Though he nonetheless couldn’t stroll nicely, he was despatched again to the entrance line, earlier than being put in a hut within the rear with different convalescing fighters.
“It’s so scary to remain here,” Aleksandr stated. “This is not our war. There’s nothing human here.”
Oleg Matsnev and Alina Lobzina contributed reporting.
Source: www.nytimes.com