At this point, one of Putin’s soldiers hits a member of the Russian National Guard out of anger, setting off a vicious brawl between rival soldiers.
Four days after the member of the national guard had returned from the horrors of the frontline in Donbas, Ukraine, video shows pro-Putin bruiser Andrei Marlin savagely attacking him.
A shaky video taken with a cell phone captures the angry soldier cursing at a guy wearing a balaclava in the foyer of a hotel in Voronezh, Russia, which is located about 150 miles from the Kharkiv region’s Ukrainian border.
The clash will serve as a warning to the Kremlin of what awaits them if traumatised troops begin returning to Russia in large numbers. Marlin apparently fought in Ukraine as a mercenary for the Kremlin’s own military business, the Wagner Group.
I am from a special group of the 136th regiment, and my call sign is Marlin, the aggressive serviceman informs the member of the Russian National Guard.
He approaches the group of national guardsmen lounging in the hotel lobby while wearing uniforms, initially pointing a finger at one of the soldiers wearing a balaclava before striking out violently.
“I’ll personally have you crucified!” You f*****, I’m going to p*** on you!
Do you know who I am, he continued? I stand up for your nation!
A second guardsman takes the pro-Putin combatant to the ground after the pro-Putin fighter struck the guardsman by grabbing his arm.
The Wagner warrior is brutally beaten with a rifle butt, boots, and a baton while hearing the horrific thudding noises of the beating.
Even when being detained and receiving punches from the guards, Marlin keeps yelling and swearing at them.
I fought for your nation, and you, you f*****, threaten me? he yelled as well.
Almost 500 pistol cartridges were discovered in his vehicle when he was captured, according to law authorities.
“A new reality is coming for the police, with no demonstrations where ladies and kids may be thrashed, but combatants who have touched the blood,” the Stalin Gulag station said.
Although the exact cause of Marlin’s violent outburst is unknown, it may be believed that the circumstances he experienced while serving with the Wagner Group in Ukraine had a significant role.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the tycoon dubbed “Putin’s chef,” was recently caught on camera claiming to be from the Wagner Group and promising condemned criminals the chance to fight in Ukraine in return for a Putin pardon.
All they had to do was fight and endure for six months on the front lines of the conflict.
In a leaked video from earlier this week, Prigozhin was seen making the pitch to prisoners in the desolate penal colony, a former Gulag prison camp.
The oligarch outlined some of the conditions of the offer, such as urging prisoners to commit suicide rather than be apprehended in Ukraine and carrying one grenade for themselves and another for the enemy.
Prisoners were given the option of becoming Russian military heroes in combat or being slain in summary executions if they defected.
Prisoners who choose to support Putin are transferred to the Prigozhin-‘controlled’ Wagner private army, which carries out the Russian defence ministry’s military commands in Ukraine.
He was recorded telling them, “This is a severe fight, not even near to the likes of [Chechnya] and the others.”
He said that compared to the Battle of Stalingrad, which resulted in roughly two million losses, “ammo consumption is two and a half times greater.”
Today, it was revealed that more than 28,000 convicts, including some who had committed rape, murder, or severe bodily injury, had accepted the offer.
As the Kremlin ramps up recruiting of prisoners in the wake of an embarrassing loss to the Ukrainian army in the country’s east, the initiative has so far resulted in the release of more than 5% of the whole male jail population in Russia.
The startling number, which was made public by the independent Volya Telegram channel, is far greater than earlier estimates of inmates who were freed and fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
This Monday, a fresh video surfaced showing 400 volunteer prisoners travelling to basic training in 12 prison vans.
Before being ordered into war on the front lines as assault infantry, where survival rates are pitifully low, the majority of prisoners get just cursory training.
According to defence analysts, Putin’s depleted soldiers may not have the reserves to repel a second Ukrainian onslaught as new proof of mass graves for war crimes emerges.
According to defence analysts, weakened Russian soldiers still suffering from Ukraine’s catastrophic onslaught could not have “sufficient reserves or appropriate morale” to sustain any coordinated attack in the country’s east.
A new defensive line between the Oskil River and the town of Svatove, which is close to the boundary between the Kharkiv and Luhansk areas, is believed to have been established by Moscow, according to British defence intelligence specialists.
The Luhansk region, which is a part of the Donbas, was one of Russia’s primary warm-war objectives, which contributes to the zone’s importance.
The analysts claim that any significant loss of land here, one of the few key resupply routes from the Belgorod area of Russia, would “unambiguously undercut” Vladimir Putin’s approach to the battle.
Following a dramatic Ukrainian onslaught that began on September 6 that caught the invaders off guard and forced the Kremlin to yield large swaths of land, Russian lines in the east collapsed.
According to the Ministry of Defence (MoD), it is uncertain whether Russia’s frontline forces have enough reserves or morale to fend off another coordinated Ukrainian assault in the country’s eastern regions.
Despite the outstanding performance of the Ukrainian military, President Zelensky said that it was still too early to declare a turning point in the conflict and that the result depended on the prompt supply of foreign weaponry to his nation.
In his first responses to Ukraine’s counteroffensive, Putin smiled off the advances but cautioned that if its forces came under greater strain, Russia would retaliate more harshly.
This raises concerns about how the tyrant in Russia can worsen the situation in Ukraine. Some experts foresee a widespread mobilisation of Russian civilians, while others worry that Putin might be considering using nuclear weapons.
President Joe Biden cautioned Putin to refrain from deploying nuclear weapons as his troops are routed in Ukraine or face “consequences” in light of the danger.
The president was questioned by Scott Pelley in a preview of this Sunday’s episode of 60 Minutes about what advice he would provide to his Russian counterpart if that country were contemplating deploying chemical or tactical nuclear weapons in the Ukraine.
Don’t, Biden advised. Don’t. Don’t. Unlike anything since World War II, you will alter how war is seen.
Pelley pressed the president on how the US would react if Putin crossed the line, but Biden would only answer that the US would take action if nuclear weapons were used.
It will have consequences, added Biden. “[Russia] will see an increase in its status as a global pariah.
And what would happen would depend on how far they go with their actions.
After the Russians left, Ukrainian troops freed a large number of cities and villages, including the important city of Izium, where remains had been discovered at a mass grave.
500 victims were uncovered in the mass grave, and at least eleven torture rooms were unearthed in the Kharkiv area.
Igor Klymenko, the head of the Ukrainian police, said that two torture facilities had been discovered in Balaklya, a town located in the Kharkiv region’s northeast.
Vitaly Ganchev, the leader of a pro-Russian government that the counteroffensive forced out, claimed that Ukrainians had staged crimes in the city of Izium.
The charge follows the Kremlin’s standard strategy of asserting that it has been set up in connection with purported crimes carried out by its own soldiers.
According to Klymenko, the majority of those interred in the mass graves are civilians, and some of the graves are simply labelled with numbers. Other graves have military markings, indicating that they include military burials.
Although the exact cause of death is still unknown, the Ukrainians claim that some of the victims most likely perished in battle while others may have been hit by shelling and succumbed to their injuries.
A representative for the UN indicated that human rights observers would visit Izium “to attempt to establish a little more about what may have transpired.”
Children and adults, citizens and members of the military, were among the fatalities, according to Zelensky.
‘Tortured, shot, and shelled to death. Mother, father, and daughter are all buried there, according to Mr. Zelensky.
Klymenko said at a press conference when asked whether the mass grave mostly comprised troops or civilians: “On a first assessment, civilians.” Despite having knowledge that there are soldiers there, we have failed to find a single one.
Klymenko said that authorities had initiated 204 criminal cases looking into the atrocities, and that police had started exhuming the site to obtain evidence of possible war crimes.
In addition to digging up graves of people whose remains exhibit indications of summary execution and have been mangled, prosecutors have so far discovered Russian torture facilities. People have also related tales of rapes, forced disappearances, arbitrary incarceration, and other atrocities, including being electrocuted during questioning sessions.
According to the director of the prosecutor’s office in Kharkiv, Ukraine, several of the victims discovered at the mass grave site bore evidence of torture, with some having ropes around their necks or their wrists tied behind their backs.
Numerous adults and children murdered in a Russian attack on an apartment complex were among the hundreds of people buried in the individual graves, according to Sergei Gorodko, an Izium local. He claimed to have “pulled several of them out with my own hands” from the debris.
When Zelensky linked Izium to Mariupol and Bucha, two places where Russia has deliberately killed citizens in what have been called crimes against humanity, he alluded to war crimes.
“We want the world to understand the reality and the consequences of the Russian occupation.” He mentioned Bucha, Mariupol, and now, regrettably, Izyum. “Death is left everywhere in Russia.” And it needs to be held responsible.
The remains will be unearthed and sent for forensic testing, according to Serhii Bolvinov, head police investigator for the Kharkiv area.
It is a component of a significant police operation in which the cops collaborate with prosecutors and other detectives to find evidence of atrocities.
Lesia Vasylenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker, characterised the military recapture of Izium as a “major strategic victory.”
She told Sky News that Ukraine was also making strong strides in the north and south east of the nation.
We are making progress not just for our own benefit but also for the benefit of restoring the continent’s long-established peace.
When asked what she believed Mr. Putin may do next, she said, “Nobody can be in that power-crazed leader’s head.”
Whatever it is, she said, “We must be ready for it. As Ukrainians, we must be ready, and you must be ready in the UK.
And in fact, everyone in the globe has to be ready for the possibility that something very horrible, another insane action, may occur at any moment.
“To do so, Ukrainians need to be armed and equipped with the right quantity of ammunition to defend themselves.”
“And the West has to be ready to impose every penalty under the sun on Russia,” he said.
A senior NATO military advisor said that Western sanctions are beginning to hinder Russia’s capacity to produce cutting-edge weapons for the conflict in Ukraine, while he added that Russia could still produce “a lot of ammo.”