LONDON, Oct 3 (Portal) –
Drunk recruits. Unruly soldiers. convicts.
They are among hundreds of military and civilian criminals who have been pressed into Russian punitive units called “Storm-Z” squads this year and sent to the front lines in Ukraine, according to 13 people familiar with the matter, including five fighters in the Units.
Few survive to tell their story, people said.
“Storm hunters, that’s just meat,” said a contract soldier from Army Unit No. 40318, who was stationed near the hard-fought town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine in May and June.
He said he was providing medical treatment to a group of six or seven wounded Storm-Z fighters on the battlefield, ignoring an order from a commander – whose name he did not know – to leave the men behind. He said he did not know why the commander gave the order, but claimed that it was a typical example of Storm-Z fighters being viewed by officers as less valuable than ordinary troops.
The soldier, who asked to remain anonymous because he feared being prosecuted in Russia for publicly discussing the war, said he sympathized with the men’s plight: “If the commanders catch someone who has the smell of alcohol on their breath, send them “Squad him immediately.”
When contacted by Portal, an official from Unit No. 40318 declined to comment on Storm-Z and ended the call. The Kremlin referred Portal’ queries to the Russian Defense Ministry, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Russian state-controlled media have reported that Storm-Z squads exist, that they have participated in intense battles and that some of their members have received medals for bravery. However, they have not disclosed how they are formed or what losses they are incurring.
Portal is the first news organization to provide a comprehensive report on how the troops are assembled and deployed by speaking to multiple sources with direct knowledge of what is happening.
Like the soldier from Unit No. 40318, the 13 people interviewed – including four relatives of Storm-Z members and three soldiers from regular units who interacted with the squads – all requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. Portal verified the identities of all fighters involved through criminal records, social media accounts or through conversations with their comrades and their families.
The punitive squads, each about 100-150 strong and embedded with regular army units, were typically sent to the most exposed parts of the front and often suffered heavy casualties, according to Portal interviews with the people, who identified at least five assaults. Z-Teams fight to repel a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east and south.
Three of the five Storm Z fighters interviewed by Portal and the relatives of three other Storm Z fighters described nightmarish battles in which much of their squads were wiped out.
A fighter convicted of theft and recruited from prison said all but 15 of his unit’s 120 men in the 237th Regiment were killed or wounded in fighting near Bakhmut in June.
The deployment of such troops marks a departure for Russia into Ukraine: While the Wagner mercenary group – which is now being disbanded after a mutiny in June – sent convicts to fight at the front, the Storm-Z units are under the direct command of the Ministry of Defense .
The squads also consist of convicts who volunteer to fight against the promise of a pardon and regular soldiers who are punished for disciplinary infractions, the people interviewed said.
According to the Conflict Intelligence Team, an independent organization that tracks the war, the Storm-Z squads are useful to the Russian Defense Ministry because they can be used as expendable infantry. “The Storm fighters will simply be sent to the most dangerous parts of the front, for defense and attack,” the Russian-founded group told Portal.
While the Russian Defense Ministry has never admitted to the creation of Storm-Z units, the first reports of their existence emerged in April when the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, reportedly cited a leaked Russian military report about the formation of the squads.
Portal was unable to determine how many soldiers in total are serving in the units, but interviews with people familiar with the matter suggest that at least several hundred Storm Z fighters are currently deployed on the front lines.
Wagner had about 25,000 fighters involved in the conflict, his late leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said at the time of his mutiny in June.
President Vladimir Putin on Friday referred to convict fighting in the regular army. At a televised meeting with a small group of regular Russian soldiers, he said he knew that two of their comrades, former prison inmates, had been killed in combat. “They gave their lives for the fatherland and completely absolved themselves of guilt,” Putin said, adding that help would be provided to the families of the convicts, without elaborating.
There is historical precedent for military offenders being pushed into fighting units; As the Red Army retreated from a Nazi advance in 1942, Soviet leader Josef Stalin ordered soldiers who panicked or deserted their posts to send “punitive battalions” to the most dangerous parts of the front, according to a decree he signed.
The Ukrainian government has announced that it will also release some convicts if they agree to fight in the war.
From imprisonment to slaughter
Storm-Z is an unofficial term used by Russian troops. It combines a term for assault troops with the letter Z, adopted by the military as a symbol for the invasion of Ukraine.
Artyom Shchikin, a 29-year-old from the Mordovia region of central Russia, was serving a two-year sentence for robbery in December 2021 when Defense Ministry recruiters came to his prison and asked if prisoners wanted to fight in Ukraine. and two of his relatives, according to court documents.
He signed up because, although he was scheduled to be released in December this year, he wanted to clear his criminal record and earn money so his family could renovate their home, his family members said. Three Storm Z fighters said they were offered a salary of about 200,000 rubles ($2,000) per month, although on average they received about half that amount.
In May this year, Shchikin was assigned to a punitive unit of the 291st Guards Motor Rifle Regiment and deployed to the Zaporizhzhia region of southern Ukraine, where Kiev forces are trying to break through Russian defenses, the relatives added.
An official at the regimental headquarters did not respond to Portal questions.
Vladimir Rogov, an official in the Russian-appointed administration in Zaporizhia who regularly provides online updates on the conflict, posted on Telegram that the 291st Regiment had been fighting in the region throughout the summer. Rogov did not respond to a Portal request for comment.
Shchikin’s relatives last heard from him on June 18.
Days later, his unit’s positions came under Ukrainian fire, relatives said, citing conversations with two survivors from Shchikin’s squad. Three comrades who had been in a trench with him were killed, another had his hand torn off, while Shchikin himself is missing, relatives said. His body was not recovered.
Shchikin’s relatives said that when they asked the Defense Ministry for answers about his fate, it either did not respond or did not provide definitive answers.
“They were from an assault unit. No one will be in a hurry for her,” said a relative.
Portal could not independently confirm the relatives’ accounts.
Drunk on duty, taking drugs
While convicts form the core of the penal squads, some regular soldiers were assigned to them as punishment for disciplinary violations, according to two soldiers who said members of their units were transferred in this way, as well as a Storm-Z fighter called Igor, a convict, who is imprisoned for attempted murder.
The two soldiers, including the one from Unit No. 40318, said officials sent soldiers to Storm-Z because they were drunk on duty, using drugs and refusing to follow orders.
According to Russian legislation on military discipline, a soldier can only be transferred to a punishment unit if he has been convicted by a military court. None of the people who told Portal about sending soldiers to Storm-Z said the men had attended a court hearing. The Soldier from Unit No. was contacted last week. 40318 said that no court hearings had taken place in such transfers, and Igor, the Storm-Z fighter, said he had no knowledge of any court hearings having taken place.
The Geneva Convention, a set of international rules of war, does not provide for soldiers to be punished by their own side.
REVOLT OF THE STORM-Z FIGHTERS
A group of about 20 Storm-Z fighters in Zaporizhzhia, part of unit number 22179, concluded that they had had enough of their treatment, refused orders to return to the front and took over on June 28 Video of her complaining about her treatment. Portal called the numbers listed for the unit, but they were out of service.
“At the front where we were, we didn’t get any ammunition deliveries. We didn’t get any water or food. The injured have not been taken away: the dead are still rotting,” said a fighter in the video Portal could not identify.
“We are given terrible orders that are not even worth carrying out,” he added. “We refuse to continue conducting combat operations.”
Portal established the identities of two of the fighters involved in the revolt and spoke to a relative of each man, who confirmed the account in the video published on June 28 by Gulagu.net, a France-based campaign group for Russian prisoners ‘ Rights and verified by Portal.
After the video was published, military police beat the two fighters and others in their troops as punishment for their revolt, the two relatives said. They said the two fighters have since told them that conditions have improved, but they do not know when the men will be allowed to leave the military.
Russian officials did not comment publicly on the incident and the Defense Ministry did not respond to Portal queries.
The family member of one of the revolt’s soldiers, a man from Siberia who volunteered to join Storm-Z from prison, said she feared the news from the front.
“My God, let this end soon,” she said of the war.
(Reporting by Polina Nikolskaya and Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Christian Lowe and Pravin Char)