Free Republic

Vladimir Putin's commanders are forcing his conscript soldiers at gunpoint to remain at the frontline. They are using a brutal Stalin tactic to prevent Russian reservist troops leaving their positions, say men who have seen the horror of the cannon-fodder killing fields. 'People are abandoned in the trenches as if homeless and littered with corpses,' complained Russian reservist draftees in a new video appealing directly to Vladimir Putin. 'Retreat-blocking detachments were set up against us and they did not let us out of positions.' They are forced at gunpoint to remain in position, a tactic used by Stalin's cruel SMERSH...

In nine months of brutal fighting, the army of the pro-Russian Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region has buried or sent to the hospital as many men as it had in its entire pre-war army. The separatist DPR began Russia’s wider war on Ukraine in February with around 20,000 men in six light infantry brigades. By November, the army had lost 3,746 killed in action and 15,794 wounded in action, according to the DPR’s ombudsman. That’s 19,540 KIAs or WIAs. While many of the wounded undoubtedly returned to front-line service, many didn’t. And yes, the DPR army has...