Putin's Chechen strongman executed 3 Russian soldiers who did not want to fight

Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of the Chechan Republic and close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin,  has killed three Russian soldiers who did not want to keep fighting in Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian military.

Col. Ivan Arefyev, a regional military spokesperson, said in a Telegram post that Russian soldiers had rioted in Zaporizhizhia, in southeast Ukraine, over lack of pay.

Ukrainian intelligence found the soldiers “were ready to surrender their weapons and go home,” but fighters under Kodyrav killed three of them, according to Insider.

This is another in a growing body of stories of about low morale amongst Russian forces due to logistical issues, poor communication with superiors and a failure to make quick progress in the invasion of Ukraine. U.K intelligence reported that demoralized Russian soldiers were refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment, and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft.

In the most extreme incident, a Russian soldier drove a tank over his commanding officer to avenge the death of his friends in a disastrous military operation.

Kadyrov is the charismatic 45-year-old leader of the autonomous region of Chechnya and is reportedly fighting in Ukraine with his private militia, known as “Kadyrovites.” They are known for their fierceness in combat that is frequently leveraged in Kremlin propaganda, according to the New Lines Institute think tank.

In the early days of the war, the Chechan leader sent a strike force to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top officials. The unit was foiled by Ukrainian forces thanks to leaks from sympathetic agents in Russia’s Federal Security Service.