Former Russian Soldiers Reveal Executions and 'Meat Assault' Tactics to BBC

In the BBC documentary "The Zero Line: Inside Russia's War," four former Russian soldiers exposed the deep brutality and lawlessness prevailing within their own ranks during the war in Ukraine. Two of them testified that they witnessed commanders executing soldiers for refusing to follow orders. One of the interviewees, Ilya, who was a teacher before the war, described an execution ordered by a commander nicknamed "Gnome" by his subordinates. These witnesses, now fugitives, recorded their testimonies at a secret location outside Russia, fearing reprisals. The soldiers also described a terrifying tactical tactic used by Russian command, known as "meat assaults" (German: Fleischangriffe). It involves sending soldiers into direct, suicidal assaults without adequate support or cover, simply to "grind down" Ukrainian forces and exhaust their ammunition and morale. One soldier summed it up with the words: "Das Traurigste ist, dass ich sie kannte" „Das Traurigste ist, dass ich sie kannte” (The saddest thing is that I knew them) — Former Russian soldier. This strategy, compared to trench warfare from World War I, is a testament to the immense disappointment and fatal mismanagement of human resources by the Russian command. The practice of using mass infantry in frontal attacks, despite high casualties, has a long and dark history in armed conflicts. It is particularly associated with World War I tactics, where in battles such as the Somme or Verdun, hundreds of thousands of soldiers died in futile assaults on fortified positions. In the Red Army during World War II, similar methods were also used, leveraging enormous numerical superiority, often at the cost of tens of thousands of lives in a single operation. Contemporary reports of "meat assaults" indicate a return to this brutal, archaic logic of warfare. The documentary, also reviewed by "The Guardian," presents a broader picture of a system based on violence, fear, and punishment within the Russian army. It draws a parallel between the trauma of modern war veterans and the so-called "Afghan syndrome" that affected Soviet veterans of the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Back then, thousands of soldiers also returned from the front with psychological wounds, without any state care. Journalists note that the current conflict is generating similar, perhaps even deeper, trauma in Russian society, fueling a spiral of violence. The documentary not only reveals cruelty at the front but also the mechanisms that force ordinary people to participate in this machinery or face the tragic choice between death on the battlefield or execution for desertion or insubordination.