Russian Security Forces have a history of Brutality
Stalin, a bank robber, starved 3.5 million Ukrainians 1930-33 during the forced collectivisation of their privately owned farms. The Red Army was set up by Trotsky - rewarded with an ice pick to the eye, Mexico City 1941 - and Tukachevsky initially to repress the Russian civilian population, which continues to the present. Stalin executed 350,000 Red Army officers 1937, including Tukachevsky, their commander.
Stalin's vacillation June 21-Juy 1, exposed in Solshenitsyn's Full Circle, who was sent to the GULAGs which led to his Gulag Archipelago, 62.5 million Russian civilians were incarcerated 1934-1990. There is no evidence for the numbers of Russian civilians killed by German forces. Stalin's vacillation ensured no orders were issued to Minsk district commanders who were executed by Stalin. Russian Civilians asked Generaloberst Guderian permission to open their churches for services, indicating some relief from Bolshevik repression. Operation Barbarossa destroyed the peacetime Red Army of 4.5 million soldiers, yet, 16 million willing recruits were available at the Ural mountain centres. Russian POWs starved 1941-43 in German captivity until General Vlassov established the Russian Liberation Army in 1943. Stalin executed Vlassov in 1947.
Generalfeldmarshal von Manstein retreated from Donbas, August 1944 with 200,000 Russian civilians who chose to accompany the Wehrmacht in order to escape the dreaded Bolsheviks. The Red Army press ganged Russian civilian from recently conquered Russian lands and sent them link-armed into double barreled Spandau machine guns, caring nothing of human life, desperate to expel the Germans from Soviet territory .
The Wehrmacht Kriegsverbrecher Buro exhumed the bodies of 15,000 Polish Army officers, May 1943, executed by Stalin, September 1940, exposing Stalin's crime worldwide. Russian denial continued until 1991.
The Red Army behaved in a most atrocious manner in Pomerania 1945 with rape massacres and torture used against German civilians . Russian Armed Forces cannot hide their brutality, in successive interventions in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria now Ukraine.
The war of attrition in Ukraine does not suit the Russian Armed Forces. Layers of layered defences are not of equal strength, one failure will collapse the lot and Ukraine will break through to the Sea of Azov. Crimea is unsafe for civilians because Ukraine has destroyed 30% of the Russia's Black Sea fleet.
Many Russian men served time in prison, policemen and prisoners share their brutality. This cult of masculinity is apparent in the brutality of Russian troops in Ukraine, they believe they must project force. The sledgehammer used by Prigozhin's Wagner Militia to kill a deserter prompted a sledgehammer craze. Russian intelligence are too preoccupied with LGBT activists and anti-war activists to keep track of jihadists, for Putin's personal security the security of the state is immaterial. Russian women, their good for nothing husbands do not work , drink all day then beat up their wives, serving as soldiers in Ukraine they are well paid and their wives are paid €70,000 when killed. The fascist Putin state, with indiscriminate terror, creating fear and denunciation is identical to Stalin's terror state.
There are sufficient Russians opposed to Putin abroad their opposition to Putin is filtering through to the general population. Opponents at the Noon time to Vote were apparent at the staged election of Putin. Putin is doomed, perhaps he will die like Stalin.
Currently in Serbia and Cyprus there is a long queue of expatriate Russians applying for EU citizenship desperate to escape Putin's widening war. Should Putin seek a general mobilisation then his regime will crumble. Russian soldiers have very basic equipment because Ukraine has targeted their supply lines. Russian soldiers have a miserable existence.
Source: Sunday Times; Sunday Independent