Drunk recruits, insubordinate soldiers and convicts are among hundreds of military and civilian offenders pressed into Russian penal units known as “Storm-Z” squads and sent to the frontlines in Ukraine this year. Few live to tell their tale.
Drunk recruits, insubordinate soldiers and convicts are among hundreds of military and civilian offenders pressed into Russian penal units known as “Storm-Z” squads and sent to the frontlines in Ukraine this year. Few live to tell their tale.
I wonder if that’s entirely true. I strongly suspect they’re overrepresented. Historically the Soviets deported a lot of non-Russian minorities to penal colonies. Same thing now, where a lot of Ukrainians are being deported to the far east.
Russians are also quite frequently virulently racist. People from the Caucusus, central-Asia, etc. Anti-semitism too.
Of course, now they’re disproportionately sending those minorities to die in Ukraine, so there’s that.
They’re slightly overrepresented. IIRC not much more than you’d expect given the gap in socioeconomic status, though.
They did do that to a number of Axis powers fascists, because they were fascists.
The first deportations of ethnic minorities started in the 1920s.
??? The rise of fascism to serious prominence, and the existence of ‘Axis’ powers, predates World War II, try World War I for example.
They weren’t deporting axis power fascists in the 1920s. They were primarily deporting peasants who resisted collectivisation. They weren’t ‘axis power fascists’. Even Stalin didn’t use that excuse.