The Russian mercenaries Wagner group, acting as the armed wing of dictator Vladimir Putin, are putting the lives of their own soldiers at risk. The group’s strategies are considered “cruel”:
- Little or no training and poorly equipped soldiers are being used to attack positions in western Ukraine;
- Half of those recruited died or were wounded. Almost the entire contingent of the Russian paramilitary group consists of men who were in prison at the beginning of the conflict;
- Conscripts were promised that if they survived, their sentences would have expired after six months of military service;
- Soldiers who deserted or retreated from the front faced execution.
According to Ukrainian estimates, about 20,000 men of the Wagner group died or were wounded in combat in the offensive against Bakhmut alone. British intelligence estimates that around half of the 40,000 convicts who joined Wagner were killed or wounded in the fighting in Bakhmut and the town of Soledar.
The United States, on the other hand, claims that around 10,000 professionals hired by Wagner and dispatched to Ukraine were used more carefully and were not subjected to what international observers dubbed a “meat grinder”.
The New York Times said the Ukrainian military revealed that the mercenaries used by the Wagner group at the front lines are divided into specific functions that have been mapped out by the Kiev military command. Through intercepted phone calls and a written document found in a dead soldier’s pocket, the Ukrainian military concluded that detained soldiers are being warned that the penalty for desertion or retreat is the death penalty.