Putin’s private mercenaries in Ukraine have employed violent techniques, according to a Russian source.
Russian Criminal, a website with ties to the VChK-OGPU, republished insider commentary about Wagner Group’s suicidal tendencies.
Wagner Group is a Russian paramilitary organization that was first deployed in 2014 during the takeover of Crimea and is currently a private extension of the Russian army in Ukraine with close ties to Vladimir Putin.
According to the insider, squadrons of prisoner conscripts are repeatedly delivered in waves, leapfrogging to bring the front line closer to the enemy while Russian artillery continues to erupt overhead.
The insider stated, “Sometimes there is an order not to wait for the shelling to cease; the ‘Musicians’ [Wagner recruits] are so disciplined that they will go regardless because they have a fighting chance of survival.”
In the conflict with Ukraine, Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin trains captives to become “real cannibals.”
Wagner mercenaries in Popasna, Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine.
Previously, MailOnline reported on the ‘human wave’ tactics employed by the Russian army and Wagner Group during the heavy battle for Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine at the end of last year.
In recent months, Russian attacks have gotten increasingly desperate as Putin seeks a decisive victory after months of stalemate.
Massive casualties are incurred by both the Ukrainians and the invading Russians as a result of nihilistic “Somme”-style assaults. The invading Russians are progressively protecting their invasion forces with a shield of ex-convicts.
The insider, presumably from Wagner Group, informed Russian Criminal that waves of eight advance in groups.
As seen in Soledar, each attack typically consists of four waves, but it might take up to fourteen to conquer contested territory.
According to the report, casualties frequently exceeded one hundred each section.
Recruits from Russia’s correctional colonies are punished by witnessing video recordings of executions.
Those who demonstrate weakness or are lightly injured run the possibility of being shot in the legs and abandoned.
As a result, waves of troops engage in suicidal attacks while under fire from friendly artillery.
A Ukrainian drone captured the moment near the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in Donetsk when Russian troops came under heavy artillery fire.
Eight Stormtroopers with a Bumblebee rocket-assisted flamethrower advance first.
Whatever occurs, the group must engage in a firefight. “Whatever happens” is a task, the failure of which will result in execution regardless of the circumstances.
If there is a result, losses of over 50 percent are not catastrophic.
The squads then repeat the cycle of advancing, digging in, and identifying a position before relaying the coordinates to the artillery crews.
The starting location marked by stormtroopers is then reportedly advanced by teams with inferior equipment.
Many are killed by friendly fire thrown from Russian territory, and they are forced to advance while artillery continues to fall around them.
The insider described how Wagner Group replaces the regular army in contested locations with strong defensive lines, such as Soledar. Four waves of eight soldiers are sacrificed to advance the front by mercenaries, who are manned primarily by former prisoners.
If there is a result, losses of over 50 percent are not terrible.
In an effort to break the deadlock in Ukraine, Russia launched a deliberate push to recruit additional inmates to its frontlines late last year.
The number of detainees in Russian penal colonies decreased by 23,000 between September and October, according to the independent news source Medizona.
Putin signed a new law authorizing the Russian government to conscript convicted criminals on November 6.
During the summer and fall of 2022, the private Wagner Group, which existed largely outside of the law, presumably relied on its recruiting of prisoners the most.
During the recruitment campaign last summer, convicts who joined the war effort and returned after six months were reportedly granted amnesty and a financial payout.
The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense said yesterday that Russia was struggling to sustain its supply of prisoners and would no longer be able to rely on a “human wave-style assault.”
The ‘Russian Criminal’ source confirmed this, adding that ‘losses are increasing and progress is stalling’ due to the reckless methods of Wagner Group units.
‘The recruitment of criminals initially produced a torrent of people. Now they are vanished.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the White House, stated in January that an estimated 50,000 Wagner Group fighters were in Ukraine, of which around 40,000 were convicted criminals.
Prior to Ukraine, private Wagner Group mercenaries were employed in Syria, Sudan, and central Africa, although the Kremlin denied official Russian involvement.
A cemetery near Bakinskaya has the tombs of Russian Wagner mercenary organization members.
Yesterday, MailOnline reported on the grim plight of Russia’s infantry, which is exploited as cannon fodder and would rather commit suicide than fight for Putin in Ukraine.
A 25-year-old man committed suicide by jumping from a 10-story window in full front of his mother after experiencing panic episodes as a result of seeing war crimes.
Unfortunately, Mikhail Lyubimov’s narrative is not unusual, and it provides a devastating glimpse into the harsh reality of an aggressive war.
Putin’s’meat grinder’ approach to the conflict, which involves sending waves of conscripts to make tiny territorial gains in a sovereign nation, has led to a steady deterioration in morale and support for the war over the past year.
According to a report by Meduza from the previous year, Russian support for the conflict steadily declined during 2022, peaking in March-April and declining from 25% to 16% by September.
On 14 January, Ukrainian soldiers dug trenches in Soledar, Donetsk area, while the Wagner Group attacked with tactics reminiscent of World War I.
On 14 January 2023, the hands of a Ukrainian soldier taking a smoke break after additional waves of attacks and strikes on vital infrastructure installations in Soledar, eastern Ukraine.
Russia has relied on its massive jail population for decades to alter the outcomes of wars.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Soviet Union was faced with a massive defection of its regular army.
As Nazi Germany advanced through Crimea, Soviet leader Josef Stalin created Penal Battalions (‘Shtrafbats’) consisting of non-professional convicts to reinforce his army.
To repel the German invasion, prisoners were dispatched to the most perilous sections of the front line.
Stalin employed ‘blocking detachments’ until October 1942 to prevent criminals from retreating, murdering ‘panic creators and cowards’
The infamous Order 227, also known as the “no retreat” order, stipulated that “panic makers and cowards must be eliminated on the spot.”
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