How Russia uses Storm-Z squads on Ukraine front line: ‘They’re just meat’
- Storm-Z squads combine convicts who volunteer to fight with regular soldiers being punished for disciplinary breaches
- Sources say the squads have typically been sent to the most exposed parts of the front and often sustain heavy losses
Drunk recruits. Insubordinate soldiers. Convicts.
They’re among hundreds of military and civilian offenders who’ve been pressed into Russian penal units known as “Storm-Z” squads and sent to the front lines in Ukraine this year, according to 13 people with knowledge of the matter, including five fighters in the units.
Few live to tell their tale, the people said.
“Storm fighters, they’re just meat,” said one regular soldier from army unit no. 40318 who was deployed near the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine in May and June.
He said he’d given medical treatment to a group of six or seven wounded Storm-Z fighters on the battlefield, disobeying an order from a commander – whose name he didn’t know – to leave the men.
He said he didn’t know why the commander gave the order, but claimed that it typified how Storm-Z fighters were considered of lesser value than ordinary troops by officers.