Russia Forming Assault Units with Disabled Soldiers, Relatives Outraged

Russia is establishing so-called "disabled" units, recruiting soldiers with severe injuries and illnesses into its armed forces to the outrage of their relatives.

According to Important Stories media, at the end of November, the Russian Ministry of Defense proposed changes to the medical examination procedure for army recruitment.

The suggested amendments aim to consider the "experience of a military operation" and exclude diseases that "do not significantly affect the ability to perform military service duties."

Consequently, Russian conscripts previously sent to convalescent regiments after sustaining injuries are reportedly being returned to the frontlines in assault units without undergoing a military medical commission or receiving adequate medical care.

One highlighted case is that of Mikhail, who sustained a shrapnel wound in April 2023, resulting in a hole in his leg bone. He was assigned to a convalescent regiment, where, according to his wife, he didn't receive proper medical treatment.

"Ligaments are damaged, bone is damaged. The hole in his leg is growing every month, there is an inflammatory process," his wife said.

She claimed that a traumatologist categorized him as "B" without proper examination, meaning "with restrictions, he can go.”

After a subsequent examination, the same doctor assigned him an "A" category, paving the way for his return to the frontlines.

"Now we are waiting with our suitcases for him to be sent to the front… He has five stumps instead of teeth, and you can't take a blender with you there," Mikhail's wife said.

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When she asked how he is going to eat there, the doctor replied: "The stew is soft there."

"In 14 months, my handsome, strong man turned into an old, sick grandfather. They just ruined a man, just like me, his wife," the woman added.

According to the report, several hundred individuals are awaiting deployment to the frontlines in the regiment of "convalescents" in the Kantemirov division.

"From there, ‘cripples’ are sent back [to the frontline] every day — lame, oblique, toothless," the wife of the Russian soldier said.

“There is no one there to treat them. They just have one goal — to finish off the unfinished ones."

Witness accounts from doctors themselves suggest that they have been "ordered to return crippled fighters to the front."

A 36-year-old contract soldier from the Arkhangelsk region, Andrey, who suffered severe internal organ injuries in the pelvis from a bullet, revealed that doctors had returned him to active duty.

Andrey, spent over three months in the hospital, undergoing 10 operations. Three of them were on his bladder, the walls of which “were constantly tearing.”

"Less than a month has passed [since the last operation], when suddenly the urologist puts him in category A," Andrey's mother, Natalia, said.

"He left the doctor, called me and almost cried: mom, how is that?!" she added.

She also claimed the only test that the man was prescribed prior to the military medical examination was a blood analysis.

After the soldier himself obtained a CT scan, the image showed the presence of fragments in his pelvic area and in his leg.

"The surgeon then put the category "B" (limited fit), but said: you will be sent anyway, but maybe to the rear," Andrey's mother said.

"I told my son that they turned you into a battalion of suicide bombers: they wounded you, treated you, and sent you back until your arms and legs were torn off, and only then would they leave you alone," Natalia added.

Putin’s mobilization decree does not explicitly prohibit the mobilization of people with disabilities but later announcements said disabled people are not subject to mobilization.

But they don’t say anything about already mobilized people who suffer injuries while on active service.