On the Ukrainian front, the expression “обнуление” – “reset” – has become synonymous with execution. In the jargon of Russian troops, “to be reset” means to be shot by your own, because you refused to go on a “suicidal attack”, because you drank a bottle of vodka, or simply because a superior decided that you don’t deserve to breathe anymore.
A new report by the independent Russian publication Verstka reveals who the executioners within the Russian army are and how the repressive system that executes its own soldiers, often without any trial and without any consequence, operates.
Beaten, shot, thrown into pits
“They hit his head on the floor until they killed him. Because he had a drink after the mission”, tells a former soldier from an assault battalion of the Russian army. “We spent a month on the front line, without food, without water, without contact with anyone. We drank water from puddles, slept in the mud. When we were withdrawn, we had a drink. The officers started scolding us like dogs, and he answered back. They beat him until he died. Then they threw him into a pit and shot him.”
The executions were ordered, he says, by three commanders with war names: “Kemer”, “Dudka” and “Akula”. Behind these nicknames hide real people, awarded by the Russian state: Ilhom Peter, a 34-year-old from the Orenburg region, commander of an assault detachment from the 90th tank division, Dmitri Kemerov – the head of an assault company – and Mihail Dudukov, his deputy.
In units of this type, the reporters say, most of the fighters are former prisoners, recruited directly from prisons. Those who were lucky enough to be injured and evacuated from the front are the only ones who dare to speak. The others keep silent – or disappear.
“To go without a vest, without a weapon – that’s also a kind of execution”
Those who refuse orders are not always shot on the spot. There are “cleaner” methods: sent on suicidal assaults, without equipment or ammunition, just to “prove useful”.
A former fighter of the 114th brigade tells: “They sent us to Krasnogorivka. We were 47 men. Five of us entered the village. The fight lasted three minutes. They gave us four magazines each and told us to take the weapons from the enemy.” The commander of these attacks, the hero “Saîd” Istrati, was awarded the “Hero of Russia” medal.
Another soldier says that, during an assault on the village of Orihove, his comrade “Fiksa” refused to be “bait” – that is, the man sent first, so that the enemy reveals his position. “If you turn back, the barrage troops behind you shoot you. Your only chance is to be injured and surrender to the Ukrainians.” “Fiksa” was beaten and shot. The documents state that he “left the unit without permission”.
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