A desperate Vladimir Putin recruits football hooligans into his army to fight in Ukraine after suffering devastating casualties on the battlefield.
Notorious thugs have been mobilized into the ranks of the 106th Airborne Division, based in the city of Tula, 200 km south of Moscow, where FC Tula Arsenal plays.
Footage shows the new recruits training for combat, with local media reporting that they have been pulled from the ranks of football ‘ultras’.
The news came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy predicted that Russia will have killed 100,000 of its soldiers and “God knows how many mercenaries” by the end of the year.
According to local media, football hooligans are being mobilized into the Russian 106th Airborne Division, which is based in the city of Tula
The footage revealed the new recruits – reportedly drawn from the ranks of notorious local “ultras” – trained before being sent to the front lines in Ukraine
In a speech overnight, Zelenskyy said heavy fighting is ongoing in Donetsk, particularly around the city of Bakhmut, where “hundreds” of Russians are killed every day.
“We are defending ourselves and, most importantly, we are not allowing the enemy to carry out their intentions,” he said.
“They said they would conquer Donetsk – in spring, summer, autumn. Winter begins this week.”
He added: “This year Russia will lose hundreds of thousands of its killed soldiers, and God knows how many mercenaries. And Ukraine will stand.
“The world will do everything to ensure that all guilty of this criminal war are brought to justice.”
Ukraine claims that in just over nine months of war Russia has already killed around 89,000 soldiers, with around 450 more killed every day.
However, this figure has not been independently verified, and Western estimates of Russian casualties have been lower.
Mark Milley, chief of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier this month that Russia likely saw “over 100,000 soldiers killed and wounded” in Ukraine — without giving a separate figure for deaths.
Russia has been mobilizing people into the ranks of the army since mid-September after suffering heavy casualties in Putin’s war
FC Tula Arsenal is the football team based in the same city as the paratrooper unit, leading to speculation that the new recruits are from its hooligan fan base (left and right).
New recruits for the 106th Airborne Division march during practice amid reports football hooligans have been pushed into the unit’s service
It is widely believed that there are three times the war casualties, meaning the US estimate would be more than 30,000 Russians killed.
Moscow falsely claims that only 6,000 soldiers have died, although the BBC has been able to confirm at least 9,300 deaths through public announcements.
The high casualty rate has left Putin desperate for manpower, and in September he resorted to mobilizing 300,000 military reservists into the ranks.
Regardless, the Wagner mercenary group recruited from Russian prisons with the promise of amnesty in return for six months at the front.
It now appears that Putin is following suit amid reports that he has recruited 250 convicts to occupy Russia’s largest tank factory as he runs out of military firepower in Ukraine.
The criminals are deployed at the Uralvagonzavod plant in the Urals after officials received a spate of complaints that it failed to produce key weapons on time.
They are employed as machine operators, lathe operators, milling cutters, electric welders and crane operators, the Moscow Times said.
The plant works around the clock to support Putin’s war effort, but still isn’t delivering the desired number of tanks.
A month ago it was reported that ex-president and close Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev had yelled at the plant’s executive director Vladimir Roshchupkin with a “criminal case” for missing supplies.
Medvedev threatened arms factories with criminal action if they failed to meet Kremlin targets.
Ukrainian troops fire a howitzer near the Donetsk frontline as Volodymyr Zelenskyy predicts that 100,000 Russian soldiers will be killed by the end of the year
A medic evacuates a wounded Ukrainian soldier from the frontline near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, where the fiercest fighting is currently raging
Speaking about the criminals working at the tank factory, a source told the state news agency TASS: “They will be engaged exclusively in unskilled work or work that provides production processes at the enterprise.”
You will not have access to military secrets about new tank designs.
A holiday ban was issued to the permanent staff of the plant.
Russia lost a large number of tanks in the Donbass and its invasion to capture Kyiv failed.
Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Kremlin’s Security Council, was sent by Putin to the Uralvagonzavod Corporation in Nizhny Tagil in October.
The factory also makes flamethrowers.
Medvedev “discussed ways to speed up deliveries of hardware to troops for use in military special operations and eliminate the existing problems.”
Using inmates in detention centers to complete the forced labor appears to be the solution.
“Speeding up supplies of equipment to the armed forces for use during the military special operation and resolving existing issues were discussed during this session [Medvedev’s] inspection,” the state news agency TASS reported.