Families of Russian troops refusing to carry out combat missions in Ukraine are being held hostage by the Russian military, Ukrainian Intelligence said.
"If the occupiers refuse to perform combat missions, their wives and children are threatened with relocation to the depressed regions of the Far East," the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense said on the Telegram messaging app, reports Newsweek.
The report comes two days after more than 100 members of Russia’s National Guard, Rosgvardia, were fired for “refusing” their assignments in Ukraine.
The dismissal of 115 guardsmen surfaced last week after a Russian military court rejected their lawsuit to challenge the termination.
The judge ruled that the soldiers were "refusing to perform an official assignment" and had returned to a duty station instead of carrying out their orders in Ukraine, according to The Guardian.
Other Rosgvardia members were fired in March for the same reason, according to Reuters.
Ukraine and Western officials have said that Russia's forces are suffering from severely low morale in what Moscow calls its special operation to disarm and "denazify" its neighbor. The West has cast it as a poorly executed, imperial-style land grab.
Russia created the National Guard in 2016 to fight terrorism and organized crime. Since then, it has cracked down on peaceful anti-government protests, and in 2020, was placed on standby by President Vladimir Putin to intervene in Belarus, which was squashing civil unrest of its own.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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