Russian soldiers tell BBC they saw fellow troops executed on commanders' orders

[Mr. Sparkle]

Four Russian soldiers have exposed the horror and brutality of conditions on their side of the front lines in Ukraine, with two men telling the BBC they saw soldiers being executed on the spot for refusing orders. One man told a documentary team he saw a soldier executed on the order of his commander, who was made a "Hero of Russia" in 2024. "I see it - just two metres, three metres... click, clack, bang," he said.

Another soldier, from a different unit, says he saw his commander shoot four men himself. "I knew them," he says of the soldiers executed. "I remember one of them screaming 'Don't shoot, I'll do anything!'" One of them also says he saw 20 bodies of fellow soldiers lying in a pit after being "zeroed" by comrades. The term "zero" is Russian military slang for executing your own.

In the documentary, The Zero Line: Inside Russia's War, men give detailed accounts about how they were tortured for refusing to take part in assaults they describe as verging on suicide missions. Russian troops call these attacks "meat storms" as waves of men are sent across the front line relentlessly to try and wear down Ukrainian forces. For the first time, the BBC believes, Russian soldiers from the front line say on the record how they witnessed commanders ordering executions of their own men.

One of the men, whose job was to identify and count dead soldiers, provided detailed lists showing that he is the sole survivor from a group of 79 men he was mobilised with. Because he refused to go to the front line, he says he was tortured and urinated on. Others in his unit who refused would be electrocuted, starved and then forced into meat storms unarmed, he says. The four men, who are on the run, told of the horrors they witnessed at an undisclosed location outside Russia.

more...https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7gw3l395ro

[Playingmantis]

1. Russia Nazi Germany

[ffr]

2. Coming to America.

Thanks to unserious voters, who were caught up in the distraction campaign last election, whatever that stupid distraction was THAT TIME!!!

[maxsolomon]

6. It's not coming to America.

The slope isn't that slippery.

[Botany]

3. Quote from the Battle of Stalingrad.

Soviet Officer to his troops, “Death in front of you is almost certain but death from behind you
is guaranteed.”

And are we backing the Russians in this unneeded war of RussIan aggression?

[Itchinjim]

4. No one treats Russians worse than their fellow Russians.

From the Tsars, to the Soviets, to Putin.

[dalton99a]

5. Just like the old days under Stalin

[MustLoveBeagles]

7. This doesn't surprise me

Putin is a monster even to his own people.

[hatrack]

8. Some things never changes, among them the Russian Army.

Same old meat-grinder that it was at Stalingrad and Tannenberg and Inkerman and Borodino and Poltava . . . .