Footage emerged in January of two Russian soldiers taped to trees in freezing temperatures on the frontline in Ukraine — punishment, apparently, for disobedience. It was not an aberration. It was not even the worst of it.

Across nearly four years of war, a growing body of evidence — leaked complaints, smuggled videos, intercepted messages — reveals a Russian military that brutalizes its own ranks with a systematic cruelty that would be medieval if it weren't so well-documented on Telegram.

According to the Daily Mail, soldiers were beaten for questioning orders. Men handcuffed to trees for days without food or water. Forced pit fights to the death. Barrier troops shooting their own retreating comrades. And in one of the most notorious cases, a defector was killed with a sledgehammer on camera — with the head of the Wagner mercenary group calling it justice.

This is what Vladimir Putin's "sacred warriors" endure — not at the hands of the enemy, but from their own chain of command.

Chained, Starved, and Punished for Refusing a Suicide Mission

In late August 2025, Russian soldier Ilya Gorkov and a fellow serviceman were handcuffed to a tree in eastern Ukraine for four days — no food, no water — after Gorkov refused what he believed was a suicide mission: crossing into Ukrainian-held territory to take a photograph with a Russian flag.

Gorkov told the New York Times that returning to his unit after the incident was not an option:

"Would be like signing my own death warrant."

He also described the desperate state of Russia's manpower pipeline:

"People in wheelchairs are being sent to the front, without arms or legs. I saw it all with my own eyes."

His mother, Oksana Krasnova, publicized the ordeal on social media and filed a complaint with the Russian human rights ombudsman. Her message was simple:

"They are not animals!"

Gorkov eventually hired a lawyer and refused to return to his unit. A relative with connections in the security services reportedly helped secure his release. Most soldiers don't have that lifeline.

A Sledgehammer and a Telegram Channel

The brutality isn't new. In 2022, Yevgeny Nuzhin — a 55-year-old convicted killer serving a 24-year sentence — was recruited from prison by the Wagner group and deployed to Ukraine. He defected almost immediately. Pro-Kremlin forces later kidnapped him, and he was killed with a sledgehammer. The footage circulated on Telegram like a training video.

Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin didn't condemn it. He endorsed it:

"A dog receives a dog's death."

"Nuzhin betrayed his people, betrayed his comrades, betrayed consciously."

That was the message to every conscript, every convict-turned-soldier, every man on the frontline weighing whether to run: this is what happens.

Pit Fights and Pits

In May 2025, a video circulated showing two shirtless men forced to fight each other in a pit. An off-camera voice explained the terms set by their commander:

"Commander Kama basically said whoever beats the other one to death gets out of the pit."

Then, with chilling impatience:

"Finish him off already, what are you waiting for?"

Separately, one soldier described his own confinement in a text message to his mother, included in a complaint to Moscow's human rights ombudsman:

"They're treating us like dogs. They held me in a pit for a week and a half."

These are not isolated sadists operating in shadows. The pattern is structural — commanders using terror to enforce discipline because the war has consumed every other tool of cohesion.

The Desertion Crisis Putin Can't Admit

A September 2025 UN report found that over 50,000 of Putin's soldiers have deserted — nearly 10 percent of all Russian troops in Ukraine. More than 16,000 military personnel have been prosecuted for desertion-related offenses. In 2024 alone, over 13,500 conscripts and contract soldiers were convicted.

The Kremlin's response has been denial. Russian authorities insist that indiscipline is "rife" in the Ukrainian army, not their own. The numbers tell a different story.

Russia's solution hasn't been reform — it's been recruitment from the bottom of the barrel. Since 2022, approximately 200,000 inmates have been recruited into the military, according to the UN. In 2024, legislative amendments made the pipeline official: convicts could have sentences commuted, or prosecutions dropped for signing military contracts.

The results are predictable. In September 2024, a cannibal serving 25 years in prison was freed after fighting on the battlefield. By February 2025, investigative journalists at Verstka reported that over 750 people had been killed or severely injured by returning combatants — 378 deaths and 376 life-threatening injuries.

Put armed, traumatized convicts on a battlefield with no functioning discipline system, then release them back into society. That's not a military strategy. It's a public safety catastrophe with a uniform on.

Barrier Troops and Broken Men

In 2024, footage surfaced appearing to show Russian barrier troops — units positioned behind their own lines — shooting fellow soldiers as they attempted to flee the battlefield. Verstka identified at least 150 deaths of soldiers killed by their own comrades or commanders, and named 101 servicemen accused of murdering, torturing, or fatally punishing fellow troops.

Social activist Vitaly Borodin highlighted separate footage from the Russian region of Tuva showing military police beating wounded soldiers. One of the soldiers in the clip, Borodin noted, had his spine broken. Russian authorities opened an investigation — but only after the video went viral.

A frontline soldier identified only as "Viktor" described morale among the ranks in grim terms: soldiers have contemplated blowing themselves up with grenades just to be taken off the frontline.

One unnamed former prisoner of war, in a complaint to Moscow's human rights ombudsman, laid out the impossible bind:

"Given my psychological state, sending a former prisoner of war to an active combat zone is a rash decision."

"How can I carry out the orders of the command if this whole situation is affecting me mentally?"

Thousands of similar complaints were recently leaked online and subsequently published by the New York Times after being sent to the newspaper by Echo, an online Russian news outlet based in Berlin.

The Cost of Attrition Without Accountability

The broader numbers frame the horror. According to a report by the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Russia has suffered approximately 1.2 million casualties after four years of combat, including as many as 325,000 deaths. Ukraine's losses stand at 600,000 casualties, with President Zelensky recently confirming 55,000 soldiers dead and acknowledging that "a large number of people" remain registered as missing.

These figures are staggering on both sides. But only one side is systematically torturing its own troops to keep them in the fight.

This is the reality behind Putin's war of attrition — a military machine that devours its own soldiers as fuel. Convicts were recruited by the hundreds of thousands. Deserters executed as examples. Wounded men were beaten instead of treated. Psychologically shattered POWs were sent back to the front within a day of their release.

Ukraine set up its "I Want To Live" project in 2022 to help Russian soldiers safely surrender. The fact that it exists — and that soldiers seek it out — tells you everything about what Russia's ranks have become.

An army that has to chain its men to trees to keep them fighting is not an army projecting strength. It is an army consuming itself — and the footage keeps leaking because the men inside it know it.