Wie Russlands Kriegsmaschinerie seine eigenen Soldaten brutalisiert und ausbeutet

**AI Summary: NYT Investigation into Russian Military Abuse**

Based on 6,000+ leaked complaints to Russia’s human rights ombudsman, the investigation reveals systemic brutality within Putin’s war machine:

**Coercion to fight:**

* Soldiers with Stage 4 cancer, broken limbs, schizophrenia, strokes, and severe head trauma are deemed „fit“ and sent to combat
* POWs returned from Ukrainian captivity are redeployed within days, sometimes to active combat
* Conscripts are pressured/threatened into signing extended contracts; refusal means transfer to high-mortality assault units
* Medical commissions reportedly process 100 men/hour, rubber-stamping fitness

**Battlefield abuse:**

* Soldiers handcuffed to trees, stuffed in pits, beaten, locked in basements as punishment
* Commanders extort bribes to exempt soldiers from suicide missions—sometimes taking the money and sending them anyway
* Commanders demand cuts of injury compensation payouts

**“Zeroing out“ (obnuleniye):**

* Commanders deliberately sending soldiers to certain death as punishment, to silence witnesses, or cover up corruption
* One joint complaint from 10 women alleges a single unit (No. 36994) killed 300+ of its own soldiers, sometimes stealing from their phones afterward and blowing up bodies to destroy evidence
* 44 complaints explicitly use the term; 100+ describe direct murder threats from commanders

**The victims:** The worst abuse concentrates in units filled with prison recruits—a deliberate Kremlin strategy to avoid a broader draft that could spark public opposition.

**Accountability:** Most complainants received only form letters. Bodies are often unrecoverable. Families are told remains were „eaten by wild animals.“