Russia’s ‘Human Wave Attacks’ Are Another Step Into Hell
Using young men as cannon fodder isn’t new, but it’s still diabolical. That’s Putin for you.
Wanted: Cannon fodder.
Photographer: Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images
“Keep going until you’re killed.” That’s what Andrei Medvedev recalls being told by his commanders at the Wagner Group, a private Russian mercenary army that recruits people like him out of prison to wage the Kremlin’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
Medvedev is unusual in that he not only lived to tell the tale but somehow escaped to Norway. Most others in his situation aren’t so lucky. As the war approaches its first anniversary, increasing numbers of Russians in Ukraine — both regular soldiers and Wagner mercenaries — are being treated by their superiors as “cannon fodder.” Barely trained and often badly armed, they’re ordered to throw themselves at the more hardened Ukrainian defenders, in a cynical tactic based on overwhelming the enemy with sheer numbers.