Sent Forth as Cannon Fodder, Then Captured
LVIV, Ukraine — Creeping forward late at night toward an entrenched Ukrainian position, the Russian soldier watched as his comrades were mowed down by enemy fire.
His squad of 10 ex-convicts advanced only a few dozen meters before being decimated. “We were hit by machine-gun fire,” said the soldier, a private named Sergei. Eight soldiers were killed, one escaped back to Russian lines and Sergei was captured.
The soldiers were sent forth by Russian commanders to act essentially as human cannon fodder. As Russia presses a new offensive in Ukraine’s east, it is relying on overwhelming manpower, much of it comprising inexperienced conscripts. The conscripts in these assaults have two main uses: as “storm troops” who move in waves, followed by more experienced Russian fighters; and as intentional targets, to draw fire and thus identify Ukrainian positions to hit with artillery.
In interviews this month, half a dozen prisoners of war provided rare firsthand accounts of being part of a sacrificial Russian assault.
“These orders were common, so our losses were gigantic,” Sergei said. “The next group would follow after a pause of 15 or 20 minutes, then another, then another.”
The New York Times interviewed the Russians at a detention center near Lviv in Ukraine’s west, where many captured enemy soldiers are sent. The prisoners are identified only by first name and rank for security reasons. They said they spoke freely.
The soldiers in Sergei’s squad were recruited from penal colonies by the private military company known as Wagner, whose forces have mostly been deployed in the Bakhmut area. There, they have enabled Russian lines to move forward slowly, cutting key resupply roads for the Ukrainian Army.
Russia Behind Bars, a rights group, estimated that as many as 50,000 prisoners have been recruited since last summer.
Using infantry to storm trenches brings high casualties. So far, the tactic has been used primarily by Wagner in the push for Bakhmut.
Some military analysts have questioned Russia’s strategy, citing rates of wounded and killed at around 70 percent in battalions featuring former convicts. Interviews with former Wagner soldiers aligned with these descriptions.
The soldiers arrived at the front straight from Russia’s penal colony system, where obedience to harsh codes of conduct is enforced by gangs and guards alike. The same sense of subjugation persists at the front, Sergei said, enabling commanders to send soldiers forward on hopeless attacks. “We are prisoners, even if former prisoners,” he said.
Sergei said he had worked as a cellphone tower technician in a Siberian city, living with his wife and three children. He admitted to dealing marijuana and meth, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2020. In October, he accepted an offer to fight in exchange for a pardon. “Of course, any normal person fears death,” he said. “But a pardon for eight years is valuable.”
In three days at the front, Sergei first served by carrying out former prisoners who had been killed or wounded. On the night of January 1, his squad was commanded to advance 500 meters along the tree line, then dig in and wait for a subsequent wave to arrive.
The sequential assaults by small units of former Russian prisoners have become a signature Russian tactic in the effort to capture Bakhmut.
Private Sergei said he had initially been pleased with the offer of a pardon. But after his experience in an assault, he changed his mind. He said, “Of course it wasn’t worth it.”