Russian Army Threatening to Shoot Deserters Amid Low Morale: U.K.

The Russian army is likely threatening to shoot deserters amid low morale as the war against Ukraine continues to expose weaknesses within Vladimir Putin's military, according to an assessment by the British Ministry of Defence.

More than eight months into the war which began after Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, the UK defense ministry said in its latest assessment of the conflict that Russian forces have likely started deploying "barrier troops" or "blocking units" to deal with their own retreating soldiers who are unwilling to fight "due to low morale."

"These units threaten to shoot their own retreating soldiers in order to compel offensives and have been used in previous conflicts by Russian forces," the British defense ministry said Friday.

Putin's military commanders are also likely seeking to keep their troops in defense positions "to the death."

The assessment added: "Recently, Russian generals likely wanted their commanders to use weapons against deserters, including possibly authorising shooting to kill such defaulters after a warning had been given."

British intelligence states that this tactic of shooting deserters "likely attests to the low quality, low morale and indiscipline of Russian forces."

There have been multiple reports that soldiers recently drafted as part of Putin's September 21 mobilization order are being sent into battle after receiving little to no training. Many have also been wrongfully mobilized.

Joel Hickman, the deputy director of the Transatlantic Defense and Security program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), previously told Newsweek that the mobilization and general level of panic that is now setting in within Russia, with hundreds of thousands of men taken out of the workforce—either by fleeing or fighting in Ukraine—is only going to exacerbate the problems Putin is now facing.

"The Russian military is exhausted and low on morale; they've suffered enormous costs in terms of battlefield casualties and desertions with some estimates suggesting these could be as high as 80,000," said Hickman.

"This is an extraordinarily high figure for an eight-month, modern-day conflict and these numbers are impossible to sustain, even with mass mobilization."

Colonel General Alexander Lapin, who has now reportedly been removed from his post as commander of the Russian army group Center in Ukraine, threatened to shoot the commander of a mobilized unit, which retreated from the front lines without orders, according to a conscript cited by outlet Sota.

The conscript from Moscow, who wasn't named by the outlet, spoke up as part of an official complaint. He said he was moblized on September 22, and sent to Ukraine on October 7.

He said he received no training "apart from one day of shooting practice" and was given a rusty gun before being deployed near the city of Svatove in the annexed Luhansk region.

He and his fellow soldiers decided to retreat to Svatove to get new orders after at least 10 men from his unit were killed, Sota reported.

"Since there were no officers or command, we set ourselves the task of finding headquarters and asking about further actions. We were standing at a refueling station when Colonel General Lapin came up to us with his personal security detail.

"When he found out about the situation with the retreat, he held his pistol to Lieutenant V's head, the commander of the fifth company, and ordered us to go back [to the front]. He also addressed a number of insults at us (traitors, deserters, and a lot of more offensive words)," he said.

According to Sota, the Moscow conscript is being pressured to return to the front.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's foreign ministry for comment.