Angry Russian soldiers release video with testimonies about the WWII-era Soviet practices in Ukraine and ask Putin to help.

Evidence is mounting that the Russian Federation is embracing last century’s practices to force its demoralized troops engage in fighting with the Ukrainian army.

A video released by a group of surviving soldiers who claim to be what was left in April 2023 of the Storm unit from the 5th brigade of the 8th Army’s 1st corps shows regular Russian servicemen complaining against their superiors. 

The unit’s leader who introduces himself as [inaudible family name] Dmitry Nikolayevich but does not disclose his rank says he had received orders to advance with his men to the village Vodyane in the Donetsk Region of Ukraine.

“During our offensive it turned out that it was impossible to accomplish the mission in that given sector, because the enemy covered the entire area with heavy fire. In spite of this, our leadership decided to drive us forward straight through machine-gun fire, mines, mortars and tanks… for 14 days. Our forces have incurred heavy casualties – 334 men wounded and 22 men killed. The company commander perished too,” recalled the man in charge.

The stranded soldiers later learned that the army headquarters was preparing to withdraw the Storm unit from the combat line, in order to save the remaining lives. But instead of keeping this promise, the superiors seemed to want to get rid of the survivors, according to Dmitry’s version.

“A deputy commander of the 5th brigade, Colonel Ivanov Ilya Vladimirovich, was trying to cover up his mistakes such as criminal orders and deployed barrage troops to holds us on our positions. Now they would not let us go anywhere and threaten to waste us.

We are in great danger and we are calling on the commander-in-chief [Vladimir Putin] to help resolve this uneasy situation,” the unit leader goes on.

Dmitry begs the Kremlin dictator, whom the international community blames for the war in Ukraine, to personally seek “justice” for the survivors, whom he described as courageous soldiers with the accomplished duty: “We’ve been holding a one-kilometer of the front line for 14 days while others [Russian fighters] simply fled the zone.”

Area where the Storm unit of the Russian army operated in April 2023. Image: Google Maps

Another survivor, Major Rakov Nikolay Viktorovich, says in the same video that in fact he has not seen any senior commanding officer around or official orders ever since he got enrolled in the Storm unit. Instead, he saw acts of money extorsion from low-ranking personnel.

“Anyone who refused to give away his cash would soon be landed in the first line of combat. This is happening systematically,” he alleged.

Rakov also recalled his encounters with servicemen who got discharged from hospitals after three days of recovery but without proper medical assistance - some were pushed to fight with shell fragments left inside their bodies.

The Russian soldiers described the methods of the central command as “chaos” and branded their senior commanders as “a criminal group.”

Social media platforms have been flooded lately with testimonies by Russian military and mercenaries complaining against their commanders, whom they accused of brutal treatment and senseless “criminal orders”.

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While the practice of using barrage troops as a method to stop retreat is as old as probably the history of warfare, the first mass shootings into retreating friendly personnel were documented during the World War II. At the orders of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, NKVD troops opened machine-gun fire at regular army servicemen trying to escape the overwhelming and heavily-armed Germans. Many Red Army soldiers had light weapons only and some recruits had no weapons at all but were instructed to get one from the enemy. 

This controversial practice - widespread in 1941 - was formally abolished in the Soviet Union more than a year later, when the front line stabilized and the first successful counter-offensives kicked off.

Now it looks like there’s a comeback – there are reports that Chechen fighters are often given the role of barrage troops and some Russian lawmakers talk about officially reinstating it in order to boost discipline.