A Russian convict soldier turned his gun on his comrades in a killing spree that has sent shockwaves through Putin’s army. The Kremlin has raided prisons across Russia for recruits to fight in Ukraine, in a desperate attempt to boost the numbers of its frontline troops.
Dangerous criminals serving life sentences for rape and murder have been pressed into military service as part of penal battalions known initially as Storm Z.
Units of 100-150 prisoners have been attached to regular army battalions, and are often used as cannon fodder by their commanders.
It is believed that more than 100,000 convicts have been sent to fight in Ukraine since the war started in February 2022.
Now it would appear that the convicts pose a very real danger to Russian soldiers, and could prompt a breakdown of order and discipline within the ranks.
Pro-Russian military bloggers claim 57-year-old Sergeant Yuri Galushko killed six soldiers from the howitzer artillery battalion of the 10th Tank Regiment with his AK-12 rifle, before fleeing.
One wrote: “It seems, this animal just shot the artillery division control with a weapon somewhere in the Aleksandrovka area.
“Perhaps he will try to cross to the other (Ukraine) side.”
Galushko is said to originate from Kharkiv in Ukraine but has a Russian passport.
He went to live in the Belgorod region in Russia, where he fell foul of the law and was sent to prison.
The 57-year-old signed a military contract in February while serving his sentence in a penal colony.
Last year a Russian deputy Justice Minister announced an astonishing drop in the country’s prison population.
Vsevolod Vukolov said the number of inmates in Russia’s prisons had gone down from a pre-war total of 420,000 to a historic low of 266,000.
Some of Russia’s most notorious criminals have been signed up to fight. One such person is Dmitry Malyshev – an infamous cannibal.
A member of a ruthless criminal group, he was convicted for the murder of two people, gun running and cannibalism in 2014 and sentenced to 25 years.
In a now notorious video, Malyshev filmed himself frying the heart of a former acquaintance and then eating it.
