Artyom Shchkin, a native of the Mordovia region of central Russia, was recruited into the Storm Z unit from prison.
London:
Drunken recruits. Disobedient soldiers. Convict.
They are among the hundreds of military and civilian criminals sent to Ukraine’s front lines this year, pushed into a Russian criminal unit known as the “Storm Z” squad, according to 13 people familiar with the matter, including five of the fighters. He is said to be one of the within the unit.
Few people live to tell their stories, people said.
“Storm fighters, they’re just meat,” said one regular soldier in the Army’s 2nd Division. 40,318 troops were deployed in May and June near the battle-torn city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
He said he treated a group of six or seven Storm Z fighters who were injured on the battlefield, disobeying orders from their commander, whose name he did not know, to leave. He said he did not know why the commander gave the order, but argued it symbolized that the Storm Z fighters were considered by officers to be less valuable than regular troops. did.
The soldier, who requested anonymity for fear of being prosecuted in Russia for speaking publicly about the war, said he sympathized with the soldiers’ plight. “If commanders catch anyone with the smell of alcohol on their breath, they will immediately send them to Storm Base,” the squad said. ”
When contacted by Reuters, an officer from the second unit said: 40318 declined to comment on Storm-Z and ended the call. The Kremlin referred Reuters’ questions to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Russian state media has reported that the Storm Z squad existed, participated in heavy fighting, and some of its members received medals for bravery, but did not say how it was formed or how much it lost.
Reuters is the first news organization to speak to multiple sources with direct knowledge of what is going on and compile a comprehensive account of how the force will be formed and deployed.
Like a soldier with a unit number. In 40318, all 13 people interviewed (including four relatives of Storm Z members and three Regular Force soldiers with ties to the squad) requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation. I hoped. Reuters confirmed the identities of all the militants involved, using his criminal history and social media accounts, as well as speaking with his fellow service members and their families.
Punishment squads, each about 100 to 150 strong and integrated into regular army units, are typically sent to the most dangerous areas of the front line, often inflicting heavy losses, according to interviews with Reuters officials. It is said to cover. Z Team fighting to repel Ukrainian counterattacks in the east and south.
Three of the five Storm Z fighters interviewed by Reuters, as well as relatives of three other Storm Z fighters, described a nightmarish engagement in which much of their squad was wiped out.
A convicted theft fighter who was drafted from prison said all but 15 of the 120 men in his unit belonging to the 237th Regiment were killed or wounded in June’s fighting near Bakhmut. .
The deployment of such a squad marks Russia’s departure for Ukraine. While the Wagner Mercenary Group (now disbanded after the June mutiny) sends prisoners to fight on the front lines, Storm Z forces are under direct command of the Ministry of Defense.
The squad is a mix of inmates who volunteer to fight in exchange for promises of amnesty, as well as ordinary soldiers who are punished for disciplinary violations, reporters said.
Storm Z squads are useful to the Russian Defense Ministry because they can be deployed as expendable infantry, according to the independent Conflict Intelligence Team, which tracks the war. “Storm fighters will only be sent to the most dangerous locations on the front lines in defense and attack,” the Russian-founded group told Reuters.
Although the Russian Ministry of Defense has never acknowledged the creation of the Storm-Z unit, the first reports of its existence came in April when the Institute for War Studies, a US-based think tank, published what appeared to be a leak of Russian information. It became clear from the citation. Military report on squad formation.
Reuters could not say how many soldiers in total serve in the unit, but interviews with people familiar with the matter said at least several hundred Storm Z jets are currently deployed on the front lines. It has been pointed out that
Wagner’s late leader Evgeny Prigozhin said that at the time of the June uprising, Wagner had about 25,000 fighters participating in the conflict.
President Vladimir Putin on Friday mentioned prisoners who fought in the regular army. In a videoconference with a small group of regular Russian military personnel, he said he was aware that two of his comrades, former prison inmates, had died in the fighting. “They gave their lives for the Motherland and have been completely exonerated,” Putin said, adding that the prisoners’ families would be given support, without giving further details.
There is historical precedent for military criminals being forced into combat units. In 1942, as the Red Army was retreating from the Nazi advance, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed a decree to deploy soldiers who had panicked or left their posts to the most dangerous parts of the front line. He ordered them to be placed in a “punishment battalion.”
The Ukrainian government said it would also release some prisoners if they agreed to join the war.
From detention to massacre
Storm-Z is an unofficial term used by the Russian military, combining the term for shock troops and the letter Z, which the military adopted as a symbol for the invasion of Ukraine.
Artyom Shchkin, a 29-year-old from the Mordovia region of central Russia, was serving a two-year sentence for robbery in December 2021 when a Ministry of Defense recruiter visited him in prison. , asked if the inmates wanted to go to Ukraine and fight. According to court records and two of his relatives.
His family said he registered because he was scheduled to be released in December, but wanted to clear his criminal record and earn money for his family to renovate their home. The three Storm Z fighters said they were offered a monthly salary of about 200,000 rubles (about 200,000 yen), but on average they were paid only about half that amount.
By May of this year, Shchkin was assigned to a punitive unit within the 291st Guards Motor Rifle Regiment and sent to the Zaporizhzhya region in southern Ukraine, where Kiev forces were trying to break through Russian defenses, relatives added.
Officials at the regimental headquarters did not respond to questions from Reuters.
Vladimir Rogov, an official with the Russian-installed Zaporizhzhia administration who provides regular online updates on the conflict, posted on Telegram that the 291st Regiment had been fighting in the area all summer. Rogoff did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Shchkin’s relatives last heard from him on June 18.
A few days later, relatives said his unit’s position came under fire from Ukrainian forces. He cited conversations with two survivors of Shchkin’s unit. According to relatives, three of Shchkin’s comrades who were in the trenches were killed, another had his hand torn off, and Shchkin himself is missing. His body has not yet been recovered.
Shchkin’s relatives said they had asked the Defense Ministry for answers about his fate, but had received no response or a clear answer.
“They were from the Storm Force. For them, no one is in a hurry,” one relative said.
Reuters could not independently confirm the relative’s account of events.
Drinking alcohol or using drugs while on duty
Prisoners form the core of the penal unit, but two soldiers say members of the unit were transferred in this way, and Igor, a prisoner imprisoned for attempted murder.
According to two soldiers (including one from Unit 1) 40318, police officers sent soldiers to Storm-Z for drinking on duty, using drugs, and refusing to carry out orders.
According to Russia’s law on military discipline, a soldier can only be transferred to a criminal unit if convicted by a military tribunal. Of those who told Reuters that soldiers had been sent to Storm Z, none said the men took part in the court hearing. Last week, I received a call from a soldier from the second unit. 40318 said there was no court hearing held for such a transfer, and Storm Z fighter Igor said he was unaware of any court hearing taking place.
The Geneva Conventions, the international rules of war, do not apply to soldiers who are punished by their own side.
STORM-Z Fighters Rebellion
Deciding that they had had enough treatment, a group of about 20 Storm Z fighters from Zaporizhzhia’s unit number 22179 refused orders to return to the front lines and on June 28, decided to give up their medical treatment. I recorded a video complaining about this. . Reuters attempted to call the number listed for the unit, but the call was unsuccessful.
“On the front lines where we have been, we couldn’t get ammunition delivered. We couldn’t get water, we couldn’t get food. The wounded weren’t taken away. The dead are still rotting.” said in a video. Reuters could not identify him.
“We are being given terrible orders that are not even worth carrying out,” he added. “We refuse to continue combat operations.”
Reuters identified two of the fighters involved in the rebellion and spoke to relatives of each man who corroborated the accounts in the video. The video was released on June 28 by Gulagu.net, a French-based campaign group for Russian prisoners of war. ” and reviewed by Reuters.
After the video was released, relatives of the two men said military police beat the two fighters and other members as punishment for the rebellion. Since then, two of the fighters have told them that their situation has improved, but they do not know when they will be allowed to retire.
Russian officials have not commented publicly on the incident, and the Defense Ministry did not respond to questions from Reuters.
The family of one of the rebel soldiers, a Siberian man who volunteered to join Storm Z from prison, said the news from the front was frightening.
“God, please end this quickly,” she said of the war.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
