Russian soldiers sent a message to Putin: Our commanders are a criminal organization

Members of a newly-formed Russian assault unit said their commanders had deployed troops to prevent them from retreating after they suffered heavy losses in eastern Ukraine and received death threats.

In a video message sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin, a group of about 20 men in military uniforms said they were remnants of the Storm, a unit within the defence ministry, reports Indeks.hr with reference to the Guardian.

“For 14 days we were under open mortar and artillery fire. We had heavy losses. 34 people were wounded and 22 killed, including our commander,” Russian soldier Alexander Gorin said in a video that appeared on Russian Telegram channels on Friday.

Another soldier said that the unit started with 161 soldiers. Gorin said that the soldiers decided to return to the Russian command, but their superiors did not allow them to do so. “They put the army at our backs and did not allow us to leave the position. They threatened to destroy us one by one and as a unit. They want to execute us because we are witnesses to a completely unscrupulous criminal leadership,” Gorin added.

“Our commanders are a criminal organization. You cannot call it anything else,” said another Russian soldier, who identified himself as Sergei Moldanov. The Guardian identified the eight men in the video. When they contacted them, all three confirmed that they were members of the Storm unit and that the footage was not fake.

The men, who asked to remain anonymous, said they had since been evacuated from the front. The Storm unit was created by the Russian Ministry of Defence in January and said it was a unit “specially designed to penetrate the most complex and sophisticated defence sectors of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”./Danas/