The state-monitored Russian media has confirmed and reported the existence of Storm-Z troops engaged in intense fights and some of the fighters received medals for their bravery. However, the recruitment process or the casualties are not yet known.
Who are Storm-Z troops?
Storm-Z is a specially formed penal unit consisting of military and civilian offenders such as drunk recruits, insubordinate soldiers, and convicted prisoners who are posted on the frontline for military services.
Storm-Z is posted along with the regular army units. They have generally been sent to the most exposed parts of the fronts amidst fierce fights.
At least five such storm-Z troops were identified which were engaged in fighting to repel the Ukrainian force in the east and south, according to Reuters.
It was set up by the Defence Ministry of Russia at the beginning of this year after experiencing the success of Wagners Group.
Uncovering the ‘Storm Z’ Units
When Ukrainian forces obtained documents outlining the Storm Z units’ prison recruitment and organizational structure in April 2023, the existence of the Storm Z units first came to light.
Following a disagreement with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former chief of the Wagner Group, the Russian Ministry of Defence modelled the units after the Wagner Group’s punitive recruitment. With the promise that their good service would result in a reduction in their sentence and earn them a monthly payment, the unit recruits its members from Russian prisons.
Storm-Z Recruitment
Russia may have lost up to 200,000 soldiers since it invaded Ukraine, according to Western intelligence.
The Kremlin motivated the convicted offenders in prison to fight in the front line by writing off their debts.
One of the examples was Pavel Alekhin, who was sentenced in December last year to 22 years in prison for the murder of a pensioner in central Russia during a robbery.
After the verdict, Alekhin enlisted in the Storm-Z unit and became the hero of federal media materials.
Two of the soldiers, said officers had sent soldiers to Storm-Z for being drunk on duty, for using drugs, and for refusing to carry out orders as punishment.
There is precedent for forcing military offenders into combat units; in 1942, as the Red Army was fleeing from a Nazi advance, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed a decree ordering soldiers who panicked or abandoned their posts into “punishment battalions” stationed in the most hazardous areas of the front.
Challenges on the Front
“Storm fighters, they’re just meat,” said one regular soldier who was providing the wounded fighters medical treatment from the army unit no. 40318 who was deployed in Bakhmut.
It was typified how the fighters were considered of lesser value than other troops after he was given the order to abandon the men by his commander, he claimed.
The fighters are deployed as expendable infantry and take heavy casualties.
It has been reported by the fighters of the Storm-Z unit, that they lack competent leadership, and sustain limited supplies and defective equipment. Additionally, the fighters are losing their morale causing them to surrender in large numbers to the Ukrainian forces.
One Storm-Z group of about 20 fighters, who were a part of unit number 22179, decided to refuse to take orders to go back to the frontline and recorded a video complaining about the same.
We did not receive any ammunition where we were posted. They further said they were not given anything to eat or drink. The man complaining in the video recording also said that the soldier’s corpses were still decaying, and the wounded were not given any medical attention.
“My God, let this end soon,” said a family member of the volunteer participating in the revolt.
