
“Cannon fodder” is a good definition for the numerous Russian volunteer units formed throughout Russia. In order not to waste their professional military, the Russians staked on volunteers from marginalized groups outlawed from conscription in peacetime.
Volunteers – professionals or not?
To begin with, one should not treat Russian volunteer units lightly. They hate Ukraine with a passion and want easy money – this is what drives loads of former security and military professionals into war with Ukraine. Those are retired ex-military – almost all of them have already fought somewhere – Russia never wanted to live in peace and it never did. There are also former policemen among them– the Russians actively used combined police units in all Chechen wars; temporary deployments to Chechnya and Dagestan were a common practice for Russian policemen.
Besides, after the collapse of the USSR, the Russians consistently reduced their army, with hundreds of thousands of former professional servicemen finding themselves at loose ends. In addition to professionals, this war sucked in hundreds of thousands of Russian conscripts with at least some wartime experience.
Concurrently with the reduction of the army, the Russians increased the number of their security agencies – the Russian Guard became a kind of a shadow army, the Federal Security Service (FSB) put on some additional muscles. Thanks to Shoigu, his “home” Ministry of Emergency Situations was also reformed. One can add here paramilitary organizations (such as Cossacks), numerous private security companies and the general militarization of the society. That is, there are quite a few people in Russia experienced in weapons handling.
Work in security agencies and the military has always been much coveted by many Russians because of excellent social security benefits, early retirement and relatively easy money. Being conscripted to serve as, say, a paratrooper would open up many social elevators for a Russian man. On the other hand, if you got kicked out of the army due to “failure to fulfill the terms and conditions of the contract” (FFTC), you could no longer have a career in government bodies. There are also formal restrictions on employment in the security agencies, such as age, criminal record, physical fitness, or prior FFTC dismissal.
So, millions of Russians who know how to fight and are willing to fight against Ukraine (or rather – as they see it – against “NATO/America”) were sidelined by official Russian security agencies and the army. One should not belittle the number of Russians who hate Ukraine and Ukrainians simply because Ukraine and Ukrainians exist.
PMCs, BARS, volunteer units
When the all-out war with Ukraine broke out, many Russians were given a great opportunity to join in, bypassing official restrictions. If you are more or less a professional, join numerous PMCs – these are effectively state military units which serve the state under a thin “commercial” disguise. Some PMCs are closer to the army and some to other government bodies. They have supervisors; some of them are professional servicemen, most likely the so-called “servicemen on leave”. Make no mistake – these are not private companies.
Later on, they were joined by people from BARS (an abbreviation meaning “battle army reserve”). All of the above was a sort of attempt to get on board all those ready to go into combat on the back of simplified recruitment conditions.
Military units began to offer short-time contracts and recruit even those dismissed due to FFTC. The age limit was raised.
In the Russian regions, they began to form volunteer units with virtually no restrictions with regard to those willing to join. “No matter who and what you are, come on in – we’ll find you a proper unit: we’ll pay you 200К+ rubles a month and you have our promise that the time served will be included into your retirement plan, you’ll get combat payments, the status of a war veteran and all kinds of regional and federal benefits if you are injured or killed” – this is what motivates tens of thousands of Russians to go to war with Ukraine as “volunteers”.
Legal technicalities
And yet, despite all the tall promise, they are cannon fodder and are treated as such. Formally, any PMC is a commercial military unit. If you join one, you know full well what you are up to. If, on a one fine day, your PMC ceases to legally exist, you are on your own.
With BARS fighters and volunteers, things look a bit different. Often the signing of a contract is delayed as much as possible; in many cases the contract is signed when the you are already in the field. Contracts are signed either with the military unit, or with the relevant department of the Defense Ministry, or with the Defense Ministry’s Directorate.
The devil is in the detail though: under some contracts, the “contract soldier” is not actually a serviceman but merely a contractor of Russia’s Defense Ministry, with standard military benefits not at all guaranteed. Instead of a salary, you get some kind of financial aid which is provided through a charitable foundation.
If the you are wounded, you may be given financial aid through the Ministry of Social
Protection rather than through Russia’s Defense Ministry.
Here is a telling answer from Russian military medics to one of the mercenaries of the BARS-8 unit:
“Due to the fact that the BARS-8 unit is not a military detachment of the Defense Ministry, medical examination of BARS-8 fighters by military medical boards of the Defense Ministry is inconsistent with the applicable laws of the Russian Federation.”
Such volunteers will face their biggest problems after the war. It may turn out that they do not qualify as official combatants or veterans, their unit has been disbanded, and the financial aid was a one-time benefit, their regional social payments have been cut down. “We did not send you there,” is something they are sure to hear from Russian bureaucrats trying to optimize their budgets.
No decorations for you
Many Russian volunteers are starting to face certain problems already now. Their semi-official status does not allow them to have as much social protection as the official military personnel have, so many are in for the hardest battle after they get wounded.
Not only wounded – some Russian volunteers have already bit the dust. KIA volunteers began to make their way back to the Russian regions from the early days of the war, not to be buried there as official military personnel, with no memorial plaques put on school walls, no streets named after them. And, virtually no mentions on local media.
If a “volunteer” was a retired serviceman with a military rank or was once related to the army, he might be decorated with the Order of Courage, a standard Russian military decoration of a serviceman. Some PMC mercenaries would get the order from time to time – another evidence that some of the PMCs are related to the state.
But volunteers and “short-term” contract soldiers are not up to this kind of decoration. Indeed, if such a posthumous military order were to be awarded to all volunteers, the official military men – people with a higher social status than volunteers – would start to ask questions.
That is why in the first months of the war volunteers were buried quietly and with no state honors. But, as the number of casualties grew, the Russian authorities had to react somehow.
Medal For Courage, post mortem
In July and August, we began to see the first posthumous awards of state honors to Russian volunteers. Instead of the order, they were posthumously awarded the Medal For Courage – a Russian copy of another Soviet award that may be awarded post mortem according to the service regulations.
Here are a few of the awardees of the past weeks:
- Alexander Karpenko (born in Volgograd, 52 years old, LDPR activist, tankman, officer, Transnistria war veteran – killed on July 02, 2022, decorated on July 31).
- Konstantin Tulinov (criminal convict, PMC mercenary – killed on July 14).
- Ivan Neparatov (PMC Wagner mercenary).
- Alexander Romanovsky (PMC Wagner mercenary – killed on August 01).
- Zarif Zhanataev (war veteran – decorated on August 26).
- Valery Kokov (decorated on August 26).
- Vasily Makoveev (born in Naberezhnye Chelny, 56 years old – died in May, decorated on August 31).
- Nail Khaliullin (born in Naberezhnye Chelny, 49 years old – died in late April, decorated on August 31).
We were lucky to find a photo of the Order to decorate volunteers No. 504cc dated July 28, which included 15 posthumous awards. We found out that 10 of them were Russian volunteers of the first wave (March-May):
Below are Russian volunteers who were given only the medal:
- Alexander Belov – ???.
- Grigory Verkhoturov (49 years old – killed on April 29) – former dog handler in the Russian police who also worked in transport OMON
- Alexander Guryev (40 years old – killed on May 14) – served in the GRU Spetsnaz, fought in the war in Chechnya, worked in prison
- Demin Sergey –???
- Yuri Disekeneev (most likely “Disekenev”, 38 years old – killed on or about June 14) – this one took part in “liberating the children of Beslan”
- Vladislav Erakhtin (38 years old – buried on May 19) – former paratrooper and warrant officer, volunteer
- Dmitry Kukharenko – ???
- Vasily Makoveev (56 years old – killed on or about May 31) – served in the Soviet army, volunteer
- Igor Merenov (54 years old – killed on June 03) – fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya; sniper, volunteer
- Mongush Adar-Dana (39 years old – killed on May 02) – programmer, volunteer
- Alexey Nikitin – ???
- Dmitry Savchenko (killed on or about May 08) – retired lieutenant colonel, volunteer
- Valery Statilko (60 years old – killed on April 24) – major in reserve, veteran of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation/USSR, fought in Kosovo
- Stanislav Tropina (49 years old – killed before June 03) – volunteer
Most likely, the Kremlin decided to give volunteers state decorations of a lower status than those awarded to military personnel.
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