The Russian military is executing soldiers who won't follow orders and threatening to execute entire units if they retreat, the White House said
- In a briefing, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Russia is executing some soldiers.
- He called the actions "reprehensible" and criticized Russia's treatment of its soldiers in the war.
The Russian military has been executing soldiers who refuse to follow orders, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said in a White House press briefing Thursday.
Kirby said that Russia continues to have "no regard for the lives of its soldiers," and estimated that Russia has suffered thousands of casualties, saying that some are believed to have been killed on orders from their own leaders.
"It's reprehensible to think that you would execute your own soldiers because they didn't want to follow orders," Kirby said in the briefing. "Now, threatening to execute entire units — it's barbaric. But I think it's a symptom of how poorly Russia's military leaders know they're doing, and how bad they have handled this, from a military perspective."
Russia has a historical precedent of executing its soldiers during wartime, Simon Miles, an assistant professor at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy and a historian of the Soviet Union and US-Soviet relations, told Insider, citing the Red Army under Stalin during World War II.
"They made use of so-called blocking or barrier units behind the front lines to root out deserters and malingerers, for which the punishment was sometimes death, though most of the time they were just rounded up and shipped back to their unit or sent to a penal unit for punishment," Miles said.Kirby said the Russian military has exhibited poor command and control, poor logistical planning, and a lack of ability to provide sustenance for its soldiers since the beginning of its attack on Ukraine.
"They are in such desperate need to make some kind of progress," Kirby continued in the briefing. "They are literally throwing young men into the fight who haven't been properly trained, haven't been properly equipped, and certainly are not being properly led."
Miles, however, said the threat to execute entire units is probably "mostly bluster."
"But it does speak to the low regard leadership has for soldiers' lives," he added.There have been multiple reports documenting the apparent poor conditions, low morale, and high casualty numbers for Russian soldiers.
One recent report from the news outlet Verstka said soldiers had substances like mephedrone, amphetamines, and alpha-PVP (or "salt") delivered to the front lines in an attempt to overcome boredom.
In a video plea from March, Russian soldiers complained that they were being sent into battle with "blocking" units that were meant to keep them from running away.