Russian commanders filmed abusing their own troops as soldiers are beaten, tied in freezing pits and threatened with death
Shocking footage circulating online appears to show Russian commanders abusing their own soldiers, subjecting them to violent punishment in freezing conditions as the war in Ukraine grinds on.
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The video, which LBC has reviewed, shows a Russian serviceman tied up and left in a snow-filled pit while an off-camera commander screams abuse at him. The soldier can be heard pleading for mercy as he is threatened with further punishment and humiliation.
In the clip, the commander accuses the man of drinking and avoiding frontline combat, shouting that others are “suffering at the front” while he “sat in the rear doing nothing”.
The soldier is repeatedly insulted, told to “shut up”, and warned that he will “die in this pit”. At one point, the commander threatens to urinate on him.
The punishment escalates when the commander says the soldier will be forced to “run with TMs”, a reference to TM-62 anti-tank mines.
LBC has previously reported on accusations Russia has been using Africans as cannon fodder in its battle against Ukraine - as video footage shows one solider with a landmine strapped to his chest.
The footage is the latest in a growing body of evidence suggesting widespread abuse of Russian troops by their own officers, particularly those accused of refusing orders or resisting deployment to the front line.
Read more: Russian drones linked to series of mysterious RAF callouts
- WARNING: Video contains distressing content
Full transcript of video:
- Off-camera voice (Commander): You little b***h, you drank yourself to s**t, sat in the rear doing nothing while the guys at the front are f*****g suffering. This is for you... you're gonna die in this f*****g pit!
- Man in the pit: I won't do it again, commander...
- Off-camera voice: Shut the f**k up, you f*****g dog! Shut up, I told you, you b***h!
- Man in the pit: Please don't, commander, please don't...
- Off-camera voice: That's it, for f**k's sake, you’re going to run with TMs (anti-tank mines) for me, dammit!
- Man in the pit: I won't do it again, commander...
- Off-camera voice: Shut your mouth! I'll f*****g p**s on you, you f*****g f****t!
- Man in the pit: I won't do it again, commander... Please don't, commander, please don't!
- Off-camera voice: Close your mouth!
Previously, LBC has seen videos showing Russian soldiers stripped to their underwear, tied to trees and left shivering in sub-zero temperatures. In one clip, a senior officer is seen forcing snow into a soldier’s mouth while screaming at him for attempting to leave his position. Another shows a man tied upside down outdoors as he begs for mercy.
The punishments appear designed not only to inflict physical suffering but to publicly degrade and terrorise troops into compliance.
Ukrainian media outlet Butusov Plus described the scenes as evidence that “Russia turns people into cattle”, likening the treatment of soldiers to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where obedience is enforced through brutality rather than loyalty or belief.
These videos have emerged against the backdrop of mounting evidence that Russia’s war effort is exacting an extraordinary human toll for minimal battlefield gain.
Nearly four years into Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a major new analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies paints a bleak picture of Russia’s position.
Drawing on US and British intelligence, open-source reporting and battlefield data, the study estimates that Russian forces have suffered close to 1.2 million casualties since February 2022, including up to 325,000 killed.
Ukrainian casualties are estimated at between 500,000 and 600,000, with up to 140,000 deaths. Combined military losses are now approaching 1.8 million and, at current rates, could reach two million by the spring of 2026.
In 2025 alone, Russian forces are estimated to have suffered more than 400,000 casualties, an average of almost 35,000 a month. Despite this, territorial gains have been painfully slow. Since early 2024, Russian advances have averaged between 15 and 70 metres per day in key sectors, slower in some places than offensives during the First World War.
Over the past two years, Russia has gained less than 1.5 percent of Ukrainian territory, even while continuing to occupy around a fifth of the country seized earlier in the war. The defining feature of the conflict has become the vast gap between loss and gain: enormous human sacrifice for marginal progress.
The nature of the fighting helps explain both the casualty figures and the apparent desperation of Russian commanders. The battlefield is saturated with drones, sensors and electronic warfare, making heavy armour and large-scale manoeuvre highly vulnerable. Russian tactics have increasingly relied on small-unit infantry assaults, often using poorly trained troops sent forward to draw fire and expose Ukrainian positions.
Those positions are then destroyed with artillery, glide bombs or first-person-view drones. It is, in effect, reconnaissance by sacrifice.
Ukraine has countered with deep defensive systems of trenches, mines and obstacles. Movement is dangerous far behind the front line, and infantry advances are often conducted on foot under constant surveillance. Breakthroughs are rare, and defence consistently holds the advantage.
Despite having numerical superiority and a much larger population from which to draw replacements, Russia has failed to convert mass into decisive momentum.
Force levels have been sustained through mobilisation, financial incentives, the recruitment of prisoners and debtors, and, as LBC has previously reported, the deployment of North Korean troops and foreign nationals allegedly tricked into fighting.