Official documents indicate that the Russian military prosecutor’s office is investigating an incident in which Russian soldiers and FSB officers were killed in the city of Kherson as a result of an alcohol-fueled shootout, Yahoo News reports.

In the report, which was presented to President Vladimir Putin personally on Tuesday, one specific statement by the commander of the Russian Guard, General Viktor Zolotov, stands out.

“I would like to emphasize separately that we feel the support of the population in the liberated territories,” the 68-year-old officer told a frowning Putin.

In fact, aside from the problems with Ukrainian guerrillas, the Russian military is making great efforts to boost the morale of its soldiers, according to several internal Russian government documents obtained by Russian journalists, which include several serious examples of insubordination due to alcohol consumption.

Russian soldiers, occupied Kherson, alcohol and FSB employees

Based on the script of a Western film, one of the documents describes the investigation by the Military Investigative Committee of the Black Sea Fleet into the incident that took place on June 19.

The document said three Russian soldiers were shot dead and two others wounded during a firefight with officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the dreaded Soviet-era KGB.

The incident took place in a bar in the city of Kherson, the capital of the region of the same name, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a large-scale counteroffensive on Monday.

• On the same topic: Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson, day 3: the Russians left their positions in some areas, Moscow is trying to bring in reinforcements / The offensive was planned with the help of the United States

According to the indictment drawn up by the Russian military prosecutor’s office, on the evening of June 19, three FSB officers of the Kherson Invasion Forces entered a bar, where they found two professional soldiers, Sergeant Serhii Obukhov and Junior Sergeant Igor Sudin, who were “passing the time and consuming alcoholic beverages.”

FSB officers scolded the soldiers for drinking in military uniform. Obukhov took out a pistol and started shooting at the floor. One of the FSB officers, Serhii Pryvavlov, tried to take the gun from his hands, but Sudin, another soldier, started shooting in his direction with a Kalashnikov assault rifle he was carrying.

Pryvavlov and another FSB officer, Igor Yakubinsky, in turn, turned to weapons in technology. According to the document of the Russian military prosecutor’s office, Pryvavlov, Yakubinsky and Obukhov “died on the spot”, Sudin and the third FSB officer DA Borodin were hospitalized with injuries.

Investigators also say a fourth FSB officer was involved in the altercation but escaped unharmed and fled the scene. The Russian military prosecutor’s office has not yet been able to establish his identity.

Russia’s problems with its soldiers

An interesting aspect of the indictment drawn up by the Russian military prosecutor’s office is that the two soldiers involved in the incident were contract workers and not simply conscripts. In addition, Russian legislation prohibits sending recruits to theaters of war.

This suggests that these soldiers must have been among the well-trained professionals of the Russian army, which makes the incident even more remarkable.

But a major investigation published earlier in August by investigative journalists at The Insider, a Bellingcat-affiliated site, found that in many cases conscripts for Russia’s still-mandatory military service are tricked, coerced or even coerced into signing professional contracts in order to could send to fight in Ukraine.

Like the Yahoo News report, the investigation by journalists of The Insider, a website banned by Russian authorities in mid-July, also relied on official documents, receiving a wide range of complaints filed by Russian military prosecutors from soldiers who complained of being forcibly sent to Ukraine and from their relatives.

They show not only that Russian military authorities and commanders force ordinary recruits to sign professional contracts, but also that even professional soldiers are denied the right to leave or return home after signing contracts.

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