Russian forces based in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast are grappling with internal strife, as dire service conditions reportedly push soldiers to acts of violence, according to the Atesh partisan movement.
The Atesh movement was created in 2022 after the beginning of Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine. It claims to have developed a network of saboteurs inside the Russian military and created an online course instructing Russian soldiers how to wreck their own equipment. In February 2023, it claimed 4,000 Russian soldiers were learning in its online course.
Occupying troops describe their conditions as intolerable, citing torture, intimidation, confiscation of mobile phones, and rampant corruption among commanders. Allegedly, commanders demand bribes and even seize soldiers’ payroll cards.
The partisan movement reports that on 14 January, a Russian soldier from the 64th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade near Huliaipole wounded a sergeant and fatally shot his platoon commander with a 5.45mm Kalashnikov rifle.
Following the incident, Russian military leadership is said to be implementing stricter measures to control the use of personal weapons among troops.
Earlier, the partisans revealed that the Russian Defense Ministry dispatched a commission to the 1196th Motorized Rifle Regiment in the temporarily occupied part of Kherson Oblast in response to a rise in suicides and sabotage targeting watercraft by its soldiers.
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