"They killed my child", says Tatyana Bykova in her video address. She says that her son Andrei was killed by his commanders in the Russian army, whose names she names and adds that she hates them. They blackmailed him into giving them half of the compensation he was due for injury, but instead he bought a car with the money. Then they demanded the car, and after they didn't get it either, they simply killed him, the woman in the video also says.
She filed a complaint with the Investigative Committee of Russia and the prosecutor's office, but this led to nothing. Andrei Bykov was declared missing without a trace. "They told me that before he died he didn't have a single healthy spot on his body, they beat him brutally. He was dumped somewhere in the forests in Galitsynovka", Bykova tells "Verstka".
In October 2025, this publication launched a project to shed light on the widespread practice of torture to death and "zeroing" - that's what the Russian army slang calls the killings of "their own".
Murder and torture in the Russian army
"Verstka" names dozens of names of commanders involved in such acts. This was inadvertently acknowledged by "United Russia" deputy Alexander Pashchenko, who himself participated in the war against Ukraine. To a critical Russian from the Khakassia region, Pashchenko said: "You would be put to death for such words at the front," indirectly confirming the existence of this practice.
“The killings of your own people are just one of the elements that indicate the sad state of the Russian army. Torture is a widespread practice there,“ military observer Yuri Fyodorov told DW. Torture videos are also posted on Telegram channels.
Fyodorov gives an example of a similar form of torture - “throwing into a pit“. Depending on the commander's mood, each private can find himself at the bottom of a pit for a week or two, during which time they are only fed food scraps. Other soldiers make them “hug a tree” – they handcuff them and tie them to a tree, leaving them there for a day or two without food or water.
Of course, they can always shoot a soldier and then declare him missing or killed in battle. At their discretion, officers can send a soldier to attack a place where the probability of his being killed is very high.
Inhumane methods
Military analyst Yan Matveev also says that inhumane methods are used in the Russian army: “They send their own to certain death, everyone knows it. It is clear that if they send you to attack a fortified position, it is very likely that they will kill you. It is difficult to imagine what could make you go to certain death, if you are not threatened by something else, for example, beatings, torture, mockery, psychological pressure and death“, the expert explains.
The reasons for “zeroing“ can be very different – disobedience, violation of discipline, alcohol use, arguments with officers, refusal to give up part of the salary. “Since you can send a person on a hopeless attack, condemning him to certain death, in the same way you can kill a person in the rear for some offense – for example, because he did not give you money or because he quarreled with you“, Matveev notes in an interview with DW.
Psychoanalyst Alina Putilovskaya sees in this “transfer“ of aggressive affect: “The commanders who commit these terrible atrocities have their own commanders who also make fun of them – issue unrealistic orders, leave the units without vital supplies. This gives rise to feelings of powerlessness and aggression in the field commanders, which they transfer to their subordinates“.
How "zeroing" replaced discipline
The so-called "zeroing" in the Russian army became possible because of the corrupt officer corps and the criminal and poorly disciplined rank and file, says Fyodorov. He says that the officer corps in Russia began to deteriorate since the 1990s - then many people remained in the army because they could not realize themselves in civilian life, and these people compensated for their low salaries with corruption schemes: they got rich by making soldiers work for them for free. Now it is these officers who are fighting in Ukraine, says the military observer.
Experts agree that the Russian army in this war has also changed due to the fact that it has begun to replenish its ranks with mercenaries who fight for money, as well as with those convicted of serious crimes. In order to keep "this whole gang in submission, it is necessary to apply the most cruel methods", explains Fedorov and gives an example of this with the video in which mercenaries from the private army "Wagner" kill their comrade-in-arms with a hammer.
„First, in the Russian army, these cruelties were applied to mobilized from the occupied Ukrainian territories. Then came the prisoners, to whom the commanders also showed no mercy and used them as "cannon fodder". Then the same thing happened with the mobilized Russians. So gradually this spread to the entire army”, explains Matveev.
Why are "zeroings" not punished in the Russian army
The main reason for the existence of these barbaric practices is the lack of discipline in a military system that is not built normally, the expert is convinced. “All this gives rise to impunity. For serious war crimes – for example, the mass murders in Bucha and Mariupol – no one in the Russian army has been punished. This, in turn, sends a categorical signal that “people can be killed just like that, without anyone being held responsible for it”. And if Ukrainian citizens can be killed, then Russians can too. Matveev is convinced that “zeroing“ has replaced discipline in the Russian army. And because it does not combat the problem in any way, the phenomenon is spreading even more.
If torture, mockery, blackmail, "zeroing out" and other war crimes were stopped, the Russian army would not be able to fight, both experts are convinced. "In fact, its entire activity is based on impunity, on using soldiers as a resource, as slaves," explains Fedorov. Matveev gives such an example: "In any normal army, there is no situation in which you can afford to send 100 people simply to their deaths, because the commander would then immediately be brought before a tribunal. And here, let's take Pokrovsk, for example, they send 100 people to attack, of which 90 are eliminated by drones. Okay, the commanders say, but 10 people have broken through, so we send another 100, of which another 10 will reach the city and we will already have 20 people there. If the Russian army starts fighting in this way, they essentially admit that they cannot fight,“ concludes the expert.
The army “will eat the world around it”
Psychoanalyst Putilovskaya sees in “zeroing” a method of coercion, control and intimidation: “In such terrible conditions, soldiers die quickly and en masse. The authorities are not interested in building long-term relationships with people, since they know that new ones will soon come. Two things prevent the community, including during war, from falling apart: the emotional connection between people and the coercion of force. If one of the two falls away – and in this case the emotional component drops out – the second begins to prevail. In this case it turns into cruelty, forced to the maximum“.
Matveev also talks about another factor – the Russians do not understand why they are fighting: “The Ukrainian army, even in the most difficult moments for it, knows why it is fighting: it is defending its land. In the Russian army, most understand that this is just one big and vile war crime, consisting of many smaller crimes, with which they must come to terms”.
The practice of “zeroing”, according to Matveev, will end only with the end of the war, and in Putin's Russia no such crimes will be investigated, he is convinced. According to Fyodorov, the Russian army is turning into a huge criminal group that after the war “will not eat itself, but the world around it“.
Author: Irina Chevtaeva