13 January 2024 , 19:25
676
0
Distressing new evidence has emerged of the torture that Vladimir Putin’s war commanders inflict on soldiers who refuse to go to the front and kill Ukrainians.
Horrifying footage, which the Mirror has chosen not to publish, shows the Russian soldiers are forced to strip naked in freezing temperatures then subjected to abuse and humiliation. On one video, a naked soldier is ordered to crouch down - and a bucket of ice water is thrown at him. A report previously said he had been beaten earlier for refusing to go on a suicide mission. An officer is heard barking: “Go on, pour it!”
The soldier then screams as he is drenched with the water in the freezing winter cold. A voice orders him to go to the "****ing pit!” Pits - or holes in the ground which- are widely and illegally used by Putin’s army for punishing those who refuse to go to the frontline. The aim of the torture is to break their resistance, and the brutality of the treatment means this can be successful with victims finally agreeing to go on assault missions.
The footage has not been independently verified but is being used by Ukraine and anti-war Russians to highlight the brutal torture of Putin’s forces. In a second sickening video, naked, mobilised conscripts are made to stand in a line as multiple soldiers heckle and film their humiliation. An abusive commander shouts: “We’ll do a video, and I’ll tell you where to send it…you f****** dog.”
The video shows horrific torture by Vladimir Putin’s commanders (social media; e2w news)A command is heard, telling the abused soldiers to “stand straight" before the commanders. Then the naked troops are ordered: “You ******* run to the pit, and go f*** each other there - run!” The videos are believed to show the 345th Regiment of the 104th Guards Air Assault Division. Ukrainian commentator Igor Sushko said: ”This is what the fascists do to their own.”
Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade
War commander Colonel-General Mikhail Teplinsky last month told graduates of the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School that they would be serving with this barbaric division. He said: "The most important event for the Airborne Forces this autumn was the restoration of the 104th division. Of course, for combat potential and experience it is still behind other units. But its assault detachments are already destroying the enemy in the Dnipro. Many of you will start their service in this restored division."
Amid the frontline horror, new footage today showed the detention of a brave 34-year old anti-war campaigner Maria Andreeva, who works as a nurse. She staged a - legal - solo protest close to Red Square in Moscow to demand mobilised men including her husband are returned from the war. She told the arresting officer: “Not so hard, hold it - you’re hurting me."
Others ask why she has been detained when she has a constitutional right to protest alone. She tells the officers: “Our men at the frontline tear themselves apart for the authorities. And the authorities detain the wife of a mobilised man.” Previously, she said: “My husband wants to go home - they all want to go home. This is some kind of nonsense that our men don't want to go home [from Ukraine]. We do not support a second wave of mobilisation.”
Last month she said: “Our government has f***** me up. I’m just tired of their lies, their endless lies. To be honest, I’m a little tired of being afraid. I’m somehow disgusted by grovelling, and I just want justice. I'm already sick of it all. We don’t want to live in this nightmare anymore. We're fed up. How can a woman not be against war, tell me?”