Assuming this is true - WOW, just WOW:
Russia Now Has a Second Frontline Set Up Just to Kill Its Deserters: Intel (thedailybeast.com)
“They brought the inmates here... from prison. But they led them somewhere way up front. And we’re sitting here as a retreat-blocking detachment, ****. If someone runs back, we snuff them out.”
“That’s how we have it set up. We sit on the second line, guarding the first. Behind us, there’s another line. If you go that way, you also won’t make it. So it’s impossible to run away. They shoot their own.”