Thread by @dvs1976

1.Russian army actions in occupied Ukraine seem unimaginable for most of us. ‘Full Metal Torture’, an article written by Jake Rudnitsky for @VICEUK in 2006 is an essencial reading to understand the why’s and how’s.
#RussianWarCrimes #RussiaUkraineConflict
#Kramatorsk #Bucha

2. In the article, Jake writes ‘Dedovshchina isn’t some prank (…) Dedovshchina is what happens when the officer corps loses authority and 19-year-old conscripts start making the rules for the 17- and 18-year-olds. It is so bad that draftees fear it far more than Chechnya.’

3. Young recruits inflict horrendous actions amongst each other. ‘One former soldier, Vlad, told Vice, “On our first day in the barracks, everybody yelled at us, ‘Hang yourselves now, it’s too much shit to handle.’”
#RussianWarCrimes

4. Vice reporter describes: ‘The Russian army averages some 500 suicides a year, or about 45 per 100,000 soldiers.’ It is an army of horror, and it has been built for years, prior to Putin’s rise to power.
#RussianWarCrimes

5. ‘The roots of dedovshchina go back at least to the 1960s, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union it mutated from a ritual of breaking in new recruits to a sadistic system of torture and abuse.’
#RussianWarCrimes #Bucha #Kramatorsk

6. ‘More than 10,000 soldiers desert every year, for the same reason. Others go nuts, like two conscripts in 2002 who shot dead eight fellow soldiers at their outpost in Ingushetia, in southern Russia.’
#RussianWarCrimes

7. In a fashion that reminds the experience of Primo Levi in the concentration camps during WWII, Jake explains: ‘The dedy (older recruits) have more authority than even officers, and they are eager to get their turn after the abuse they suffered.’
#RussianWarCrimesInUkraine

8. ‘Valentina Melnikova, who runs the Union of Soldiers’ Mothers Committees, says that rape is endemic. She mentions sleep deprivation, beatings, starvation, and forced labor as some of the other tactics used to break dukhi.’
#RussianWarCrimes

9. A widespread system of corruption condemns the poorest russians to attend army recruitment ‘Only the poorest ten percent of Russians end up serving. They tend to be the dregs of society, often the children of raging alcoholics or petty criminals.’

It seems an error to personalize what is happening in #UkraineWar in Putin or his present army Inconceivable and brutal behaviors have been largely taught in Russia for decades. Having Putin taken away from power seems not 2 b the (only) answer
#RussiaUkraineWar #RussianWarCrimes