Russia Now Has a Second Frontline Set Up Just to Kill Its Deserters

[Nevilledog]

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toomas hendrik ilves
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I see it's going exceptionally well.

"Ukrainian troops had found several dead Russian commanders with gunshot wounds to the back of their heads after top Russian military brass gave an order to gun down any fleeing troops."

thedailybeast.com
Russia Now Has a Second Frontline Set Up Just to Kill Its Deserters: Intel
Russian soldier on leaked call said: “If someone runs back, we snuff them out.”
4:58 PM · Oct 30, 2022

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-now-has-a-second-frontline-set-up-just-to-kill-its-deserters-intel

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https://archive.ph/4WrT4

Russian’s Vladimir Putin sparked the wrath of his own people by drafting hundreds of thousands to join the war against Ukraine, and now it seems some of those men were sent not to fight the so-called “enemy” but to “snuff out” any of the Russian troops who dare to retreat.

Ukrainian intelligence on Thursday released an audio recording that appears to capture in disturbing detail the mayhem and internal rifts between Russian troops on the battlefield. In the five-minute clip, described as an intercepted phone conversation between a Russian soldier and his wife, the man says he and the other men in his unit are a comfortable distance from the actual fighting.

“They moved us back to the second line, there’s shooting somewhere ahead of us, but we’re back here for now in the trenches,” he says, before boasting that he’d been lucky and found a “Rosneft jacket covered in blood, but warm.”

“They brought the inmates here... from prison. But they led them somewhere way up front. And we’re sitting here as a retreat-blocking detachment, fuck. If someone runs back, we snuff them out.”

“What a nightmare,” his wife says.

“That’s how we have it set up. We sit on the second line, guarding the first. Behind us, there’s another line. If you go that way, you also won’t make it. So it’s impossible to run away. They shoot their own.”

“If someone goes [that way], you need to wipe him out,” he said.

*snip*

[DavidDvorkin]

1. That must be wonderful for morale.

[DemocraticPatriot]

8. The shootings will continue until morale improves...

[Warpy]

13. They don't care. Really. They don't

Konstantin over at "Inside Russia" (although he's currently in Uzbekistan) gave a little history lesson today about how Russia, ever since the Vikings came through and gave it its name, has had only two classes: land owners and slaves (serfs). After the 1917 revolution, a bunch of guys just changed uniforms and it became Communist Party types and collectivized workers with about the same rights as the serfs had. There was a brief hiatus in the 00s before Putin went power mad, but since then he's been trying to rebuild that system.

The officers are all "gentlemen" of one sort or another, usually old Party members plugged into that system. The soldiers are just serfs, not worth any consideration, at all. It's why they're sending them to the front with a week of "this is where the bullet comes out" and inadequate supplies. They really are cannon fodder and the saddest part is they know it, they've just been fed a load of bullshit about the savage Ukrainians for so long that they're more terrified of surrender than they are of being shot as deserters.

[OAITW r.2.0]

2. Sounds like madness. A Russian solution is in order.nt

[niyad]

3. May all involved receive everything they deserve.

[RockRaven]

4. Oh. Well, that is one way to do it.

[dalton99a]

5. Order No. 227

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_No._227

Marshal of the Soviet Union, Aleksandr Vasilevsky, wrote: "...Order N 227 is one of the most powerful documents of the war years due to its patriotic and emotional content... the document was motivated by rough and dark times... while reading it we were thinking to ourselves if we were doing everything it takes to win the battle."[9]

No commander had the right to retreat without an order. Anyone who did so was subject to a military tribunal of the corresponding seniority level.

Order No. 227 established that each front must create one to three penal battalions (Russian: штрафной батальон, romanized: shtrafnoy batalyon, lit. 'penalty battalion', commonly known as штрафбат, shtrafbat) of up to 800 middle-ranking commanders and high-ranking commanders accused of disciplinary problems. Penal battalions were sent to the most dangerous sections of the front lines.[3] Each front had to create penal companies for privates and NCOs. By the end of 1942 there were 24,993 troops serving in penal battalions, which increased to 177,694 in 1943. The number decreased over the next two years to 143,457 and 81,766 soldiers in 1944 and 1945, respectively. The total of Red Army personnel sentenced by courts-martial was 994,300, with 422,700 assigned to penal battalions and 436,600 imprisoned after sentencing. Not included are 212,400 deserters, who were not found and escaped the custody of the military districts.[4]

The order also directed that each army must create "blocking detachments" (Russian: заградительный отряд, romanized: zagraditelny otryad, abbreviated to заградотряд, zagradotryad) at the rear that would shoot "panic-mongers and cowards".[2] Both measures were cited in the preamble of the order as having been successfully used by the Germans during their winter retreat.

In the first three months, blocking detachments shot 1,000 penal troops and sent 24,000 to penal battalions. According to an internal list of the NKVD from October 1942, 15,649 soldiers were picked up by the restricted forces who fled the front line on the Stalingrad Front from August 1, 1942 to October 15, 1942. Of these, 244 soldiers were imprisoned, 278 were shot, 218 were sent to penal companies, 42 to penal battalions and 14,833 to return to their units.[10] By October 1942, the idea of regular blocking detachments was quietly dropped.[2][5]

[DemocraticPatriot]

6. Even with the ammunition shortage ??

Well, every bullet spent killing your own conscripts is one less bullet they can shoot at Ukrainian troops...

[Goodheart]

7. Sounds like a good reason for the front liners to just surrender

[GoCubsGo]

9. They're better off surrendering to the Ukrainians--if they can do so.

But, it sounds some of them are taking care of the issue on their own.

[OnDoutside]

18. I saw that piece on YouTube and a similar thought occurred to me too.

The wife should have advised him to carry something white so he could wave it if the opportunity arose.

[WarGamer]

11. What's old is new again.

[Botany]

12. Soviet Officer to Soviet Troops @ Stalingrad

"Death in front of you is almost a given but death behind you is a certainty."

[dalton99a]

15. Yep.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

16. For those unaware, at Stalingrad the Soviets had lines of machine gunners behind their front lines.

Anyone who tried to flee was cut down.

[Initech]

17. Vladimir Putin and Dimitri Medvedev are terrorists.

The sooner they are given the Osama bin Laden treatment the better.

[DFW]

19. It is no accident that draftable Russian men are taking extended vacations abroad

I can understand that trying to sing “Krasny Sarafan” for lunch money on the streets of Helsinki or Berlin is preferable to a bullet in the back of the head from a bloodthirsty countryman looking to kill a few of his own guys, but too cowardly to join the front lines himself.

[Captain Zero]

20. They might run out of Ammo

Shooting their deserters.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

21. The Russian people might start voting with bullets, just to be certain of an accurate count.

[TomSlick]

22. Having units to shoot deserters was doctrine during the Soviet era.

The more things change....

[EX500rider]

23. As they said it took a brave man to be a coward in Stalin's army