Russian soldiers on the front line aren’t just dying in combat with Ukrainian troops — many are being killed by their own commanders. In a new investigation, the outlet Verstka identified 101 servicemen accused of involvement in field executions, referred to within the Russian army as “zeroings out.” Their alleged crimes include cases where soldiers were tortured to death, shot, or sent on suicide missions as punishment for “disobedience” or refusal to fight. Meduza shares Verstka’s key findings, translated into English.

What is ‘zeroing out’?

The outlet Verstka has compiled a database of Russian soldiers who have been accused of killing their fellow servicemen. These summary executions are known in military slang as “zeroings out,” and the people who carry them out are called “zeroers.”

The database currently includes 101 names. Of those, 79 are listed as “identified,” meaning Verstka was able to obtain at least two independent confirmations of their alleged crimes. For the remaining 22, there isn’t yet enough evidence. “That’s why the database will be continuously updated,” Verstka wrote, encouraging readers to share any additional information.

Almost all 79 identified individuals are commanders of various ranks. For most of them, Verstka has detailed information, including their names, ranks, units, and photographs. The outlet notes that only a handful of these people have faced criminal charges. A source in Russia’s Main Military Prosecutor’s Office told Verstka that the agency has imposed an informal ban on investigations into officers fighting in Ukraine, saying that such inquiries could “negatively affect military operations.”

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The same source provided Verstka with data on nearly 29,000 complaints received by the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office in the first six months of 2025. These records became one of the key sources for the “zeroers” database, alongside interviews with Russian soldiers and their relatives, reports from chat groups, and materials published on Telegram channels and in the media.

According to the source, since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office has received more than 12,000 complaints related to killings within the ranks.

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The ways it’s done

Killings inside the Russian army take many forms, ranging from the outright murder of a fellow soldier, death by torture, or sending someone on a suicide assault — unarmed and without protection.

Torture

On the front lines, Russian soldiers accused of “misconduct” are often held in cellars or pits. Those thrown into these holes are denied food and water and beaten several times a day, a soldier named Yuri, who served in the 114th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, told Verstka. According to him, some prisoners die right there in the pit, while survivors are sometimes forced to kill one another.

One such incident appeared in a video circulated in May 2025 by Ukrainian projects targeting Russian servicemen. The footage shows two shirtless men, as a voice off-camera says: “[Commander] ‘Kama’ basically said whoever beats the other one to death here gets out of the pit.” The men then begin to fight. As the voice keeps goading them — “Finish him off already, the fuck are you waiting for?” — one of them finally shoves his comrade aside; the other lies motionless.

The call sign “Kama” mentioned in the video belongs to Aynur Sharifullin, the commander of one of the 114th Brigade’s units. Sharifullin is father of three from Tatarstan, with years of military experience. In addition to torture, he’s been accused of extorting money from his soldiers. A group chat dedicated to the 114th Brigade shared photos of the dugout where “Kama” allegedly lived. With wallpapered walls and a double bed, it looked more like an apartment than a frontline shelter. “Compare that with the dugouts of our regular guys. Do you all have heated floors? Because he does. Didn’t have time to install a shower before heading out on assignment. And there’s a 700,000-ruble [$8,750] motorcycle under a canopy outside. I’ve had enough, ladies, seriously,” wrote the woman who posted the pictures. (She later deleted them.)

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Murder

Witnesses to these killings told Verstka that “zeroings out” are usually carried out either by sadistic commanders or by those who see no other way to impose discipline. But the most common motive, they said, is money.

One such case was the killing of Andrey Bykov, a soldier in the assault company of Russia’s 80th Guards Tank Regiment. His mother told Verstka that after he received compensation for a combat injury, his commanders — known by the call signs “Dudka” and “Kemer” — demanded half of the payout. Bykov refused and instead bought himself a Toyota Camry. The commanders then ordered him to hand over the car. When he refused again, they killed him.

“They told me they beat him so badly there wasn’t a single spot on his body left untouched,” said his mother, Tatyana Bykova. “He’s lying out there in the woods near Halytsynivka [a village in Ukraine’s Donetsk region]. The guys can even show you where. But the investigators are doing nothing. I’m in shock. My boy’s been lying there since May 8. I can’t even bury him.”

“Kemer” is the call sign of Dmitry Kemerov, the commander of the 80th Regiment’s assault company. “Dudka” is his deputy, Mikhail Dudukov. According to Verstka’s sources, soldiers under Kemerov’s command are extorted for “literally everything” — from buying gear to avoiding an assault mission or staying out of the pit. The commander himself, they said, demands the PIN codes of fallen soldiers’ bank cards. Verstka found that both Kemerov and Dudukov had prior criminal convictions, and that Kemerov went to the front directly from prison, where he was serving time for fraud.

Another soldier accused of torturing and killing subordinates for money is Vyacheslav Kiselev, the commander of an assault company in the 114th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, known by the call sign “Lis.” He, too, is a former inmate, previously convicted of rape and robbery. Yuri, the former 114th Brigade soldier who spoke to Verstka, said he saw “Lis” and his men “beat our sniper to death with their fists because he refused to go on an assault and refused to pay them.”

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Execution

This is another common form of “zeroing out,” usually carried out against soldiers who refuse to take part in “meat assaults” or other suicide missions. “You’re not actually going to reach those positions — they’ll just tear you apart with drones. That’s why people refuse,” said a mobilized soldier named Alexey. According to him, in the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, those who refused to go into assaults were executed at point-blank range, and their bodies were either dumped in a river or buried in the forest.

According to two Verstka sources, “Kemer” personally shot a soldier with the call sign “Fiksa,” who had refused to serve as live bait to draw enemy fire and expose their positions. Before he was killed, “Fiksa” was beaten and tortured with an electric shock device, and the incident was filmed. The video later surfaced in a group chat for soldiers’ relatives.

Alexey said that in one of his brigade’s battalions, there was an officer known by the call sign “Bely,” to whom commanders sent anyone who disobeyed orders or otherwise provoked their anger. “Bely” had two snipers who watched for any of the “offenders” trying to retreat during an assault. If a soldier pulled back, the snipers would shoot him. According to Alexey, Bely’s snipers killed 20 of his fellow servicemen in 2023, and 40 more in 2024. Verstka was unable to independently verify these claims.

In the 139th Separate Assault Battalion, according to evidence gathered by Verstka, punishment is delivered not by snipers but by drones. “We had combat orders to storm [tree lines], and the directive was to ‘zero out’ anyone who couldn’t make it forward. Those who refused to carry out that order were ‘zeroed out’ too — finished off with drone drops. The drone operators were terrified, standing under the barrels of their commanders’ guns,” said a former soldier from the 139th Battalion. Two other men from the same unit, who recorded video complaints about their commanders, also described killings carried out using drone-dropped explosives.

Drone strikes are not the most common method of “zeroing out.” Other, rarer forms of execution mentioned to Verstka include sending soldiers into assaults with grenades placed inside their body armor — with “the pin removed, but the striker lever still held in place.” “They send them to the positions like that,” one soldier told the outlet. “If you fall, or you get hit, or make a sudden move — it explodes. But that’s an extreme case. I’ve only seen it happen once, near Chasiv Yar.”

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How it’s covered up

According to Verstka, the bodies of “zeroed-out” soldiers are usually buried in the forest or left on the battlefield, where a burst from an assault rifle is fired over them to make it look like they died in combat. On paper, these soldiers are usually listed as missing in action or as having deserted their unit — in the latter case, their families receive no compensation.

But sometimes, the cover-ups are more elaborate. Vladislav Berlyakov, a serviceman from the 6th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, told Verstka that this is what happened to his comrade, Alexander Yurkov, who went by the call sign “Odessa.” According to Berlyakov, commanders forced “Odessa” to sell drugs, and when he failed to hand over the proceeds one day, they beat him to death. Berlyakov, who discovered “Odessa’s” body covered in bruises, abrasions, and lacerations, said he was ordered to keep quiet.

“Later that evening, I saw them put an old bulletproof vest and helmet on ‘Odessa,’ then place two grenades under him and detonate them,” Berlyakov said. “After that, to conceal the signs of beating that could be detected during a medical examination, they left the body out in the heat for several days until it began to decompose. Then they sent it ‘back home’ labeled ‘killed in action.’”

About a week before Verstka published its investigation, on October 20, the outlet Vot Tak released a database cataloguing Russian commanders accused of crimes against their own soldiers. The list includes 50 people, many of whom also appear in Verstka’s own database.