A group of Russian fighters sent to the most dangerous areas of the frontline have refused to fight for Vladimir Putin in protest over the appalling way they are treated.
Dubbed as ‘Storm-Z’ squads, the units are thrown together with a mix of convicts from Russian prisons and regular soldiers who are effectively demoted as punishment for allegedly being either ‘drunk’ or ‘on drugs’.
Their job is quite simple, according to five of the fighters and eight others who have either worked closely with or alongside them – they are the men deployed to the most perilous warzones.
And their fate is almost inevitable.
‘Storm fighters, they’re just meat,’ said one regular soldier from army unit no. 40318 who was sent to the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine in May and June.
He said he disobeyed a commander who told him to leave behind a group of six or seven wounded Storm-Z fighters in order to give them medical treatment on the battlefield.
Quite why the commander gave the order to abandon their own men, he doesn’t know – but claimed that it typified how Storm-Z fighters were considered of lesser value than ordinary troops by officers.
The soldier, who requested anonymity through fear of prosecution in Russia for publicly discussing the war, said he had sympathy for the men’s plight: ‘If the commandants catch anyone with the smell of alcohol on their breath, then they immediately send them to the Storm squads.’
But it’s the brutal way they are treated which led to a revolt among one company of Storm-Z fighters who decided they’d had enough.
Three months ago, what was once a squad of around 150 men, who were part of unit no. 22179, stood battered, bruised and weary with only around 20 of them still alive.
Only a handful live to tell their tale, and these men were evidence of that – and on June 28 they recorded a video explaining why they refuse to continue fighting.
One soldier said: ‘After the brutal battles, after everything we saw, here are the guys who remain.
‘On the frontline, where we’ve been, we did not get deliveries of ammunition. We did not get water or food. The injured were not taken away: still now the dead are rotting.
‘We’re given dreadful orders that are not even worth carrying out. Now they came to us and said: “Guys, we need to go to the front.”
‘Again to the meat grinder where we have already been. And we will never return from this.’
He added. ‘We refuse to continue carrying out combat missions.’
The outcome of their mutiny? Many of the fighters involved were beaten by Russian military police officers as punishment, according to two relatives of the men.
Putin did make reference to convicts fighting in the regular army on Friday at a televised meeting with a small group of regular Russian servicemen.
He said he was aware that two of their comrades, former prison inmates, had been killed in action.
‘They gave their lives for the motherland and have fully absolved themselves of their guilt,’ said Putin, adding that the convicts’ families would be given help, without elaborating further.
But the grim reality of what these men face on the ground is brutal with at least five Storm-Z teams identified as having fought to repel the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east and the south.
Three of the five Storm-Z fighters and the relatives of three others described nightmare engagements that saw much of their squads wiped out.
One fighter, with a conviction for theft who was recruited from prison, said all but 15 of the 120 men in his unit embedded with the 237th regiment were killed or wounded in fighting near Bakhmut in June.
How are Storm-Z units formed – and who are the men?
Storm-Z units come under the direct command of the Russian defence ministry and comprise of convicts who volunteer to fight in exchange for the promise of a pardon, as well as regular soldiers who are being punished for disciplinary breaches.
They are seen as useful because they can be deployed as expendable infantry, according to Conflict Intelligence Team, an independent organisation that’s tracking the war.
‘The Storm fighters are just sent to the most dangerous parts of the front, in defence and in attack,’ the group said.
While the Russian defence ministry has never acknowledged creating 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, cited what it said appeared to be a leaked Russian military report on the formation of the squads.
Russian state-controlled media has reported that Storm-Z squads exist, that they took part in intense battles and some of their members received medals for bravery, but it has not disclosed how they are formed, or the losses they take.
Artyom Shchikin, a 29-year-old from the Mordovia region in central Russia, was serving a two-year sentence for robbery handed down in December 2021 when defence ministry recruiters came to his jail asking if inmates wanted to go and fight in Ukraine, according to court records and two of his relatives.
He signed up because, even though he was scheduled for release in December this year, he wanted to wipe clean 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 wages of about 200,000 roubles (£1,675) per month, though said they had been paid roughly half that amount, on average.
By May this year, Shchikin was assigned to a penal unit within the 291st Guards Motorised Rifle Regiment and deployed to the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces are trying to break through Russian defences, the relatives added.
Shchikin’s relatives last heard from him on June 18. Days later, his unit’s positions came under Ukrainian fire, the 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, the relatives said. His body hasn’t been recovered.
Shchikin’s relatives said when they asked the defence ministry for answers about his fate, it either didn’t respond or didn’t give any definitive answers.
‘They were from a Storm unit. For them, no one is going to be in a rush,’ said one relative.
Since the revolt by the soldiers who refused to carry on fighting, two fighters told relatives conditions had improved but they did not know when they would be allowed to quit the military.
According to Russian legislation on military discipline, a soldier can only be transferred to a penal unit if convicted by a military court.
None of the people interviewed who told of soldiers being sent to Storm-Z units said the men had participated in a court hearing.
Last week, the soldier from unit no. 40318 said there were no court hearings involved in such transfers.
The Geneva convention, a set of international rules of war, doesn’t cover soldiers being punished by their own side.
All those who discussed the Storm-Z units requested anonymity, citing fear of reprisal in Russia.
Multiple Russian figures have been contacted for comment but refused, including an officer at unit no. 40318 and an official with the regimental headquarters.
The Kremlin referred questions to the Russian defence ministry, which didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Russian officials have made no public comment about the incident involving the Storm-Z squad which refused to fight any longer.
Ukraine’s government has said it also releases some convicts if they agree to fight in the war.
The family member of one of the soldiers in the revolt, a man from Siberia who had volunteered to join Storm-Z from prison, said she dreaded news from the front.
She said: ‘My God, let this end soon.’
It emerged last week that Putin has also recruited another 130,000 conscripts with some as young as 18.
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