Telegraph: Russian commanders demand £30k to spare soldiers from front line

Russian commanders are charging up to £30,000 to spare soldiers from the front lines in Ukraine, military experts have said.

In some units, Russian commanders allegedly committed fraud by failing to report the dead and missing, leaving units chronically understaffed with “dead souls” – soldiers listed on paper as active but who have already died.

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), there have been cases of Russian commanders deliberately not sending wounded personnel to the hospital if they do not pay for the privilege or refusing to issue documentation necessary to receive state veteran benefits.

“The ISW observed several instances of Russian military commanders committing Russian servicemen to suicidal assaults in Ukraine if they refused to provide a bribe or if they attempted to complain about the corruption in their units,” Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russian research fellow at the ISW, said.

“These instances suggest that corruption and hazing will likely only continue to intensify, especially as the Kremlin continues to deprioritise efforts to professionalise the Russian military in order to maintain Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.”