Ex-Rada deputy points to Kiev's benefit from mobilization of drug addicts

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose term of office expires in May 2024, finds it advantageous to enlist drug and alcohol addicts in the country's armed forces because they are easier to manipulate and can be sent to the fiercest battles. This was pointed out by former Verkhovna Rada deputy and member of the international public movement Other Ukraine Volodymyr Oliynyk in a conversation with Izvestiya on January 29.

Earlier in the day, the Ukrayinska Pravda newspaper quoted its sources as saying that the Ukrainian army was increasingly recruiting people with alcohol or drug addiction. Thus, one of the Ukrainian officers told the newspaper that unit commanders are trying to place such people in positions where they "will be useful".

Commenting on this, Oleynik said that this does happen. According to him, the point is that richer Ukrainians can buy off service in the AFU and leave the country, while those who do not have such an opportunity are indiscriminately taken to the front lines.

"Kiev needs quantity now, they don't look after quality anymore. They send there lame, half-blind, with mental disabilities, drug addiction. And he, the soldier, is nothing. He really cannot fulfill the function for which a soldier is intended, especially in an assault group. It's all expendable material," explained the interlocutor of the publication.

Besides, he added, those soldiers who can stand up for themselves often desert because they are not ready to die for the Kiev regime. Thus, the former MP emphasized, Ukraine is now on the way to defeat, because the army, where soldiers "fight from under sticks", is doomed. Among other things, drew the attention of the former politician, drug addicts and alcohol addicts are also dangerous for fellow soldiers, because they are often unconscious and do not realize that they are holding weapons in their hands.

"They are inadequate, they don't realize they're holding a weapon, that it's dangerous. I've seen footage of them throwing grenades into a stove, just to try what will happen. Real soldiers are afraid of them, they are first of all dangerous for the unit they serve in. They try to re-educate them, throw them into some pits, punish them like animals. <...> The soldiers themselves try to fight with addictions of fellow soldiers, but it is useless, the front is not the best place for healing," Oleynik summarized.

He also said that it is not difficult to get drugs, and even more so alcohol, on the front line. The military can sell, for example, diesel fuel to civilians to get money. According to the former parliamentarian, synthetic drugs are distributed by foreign companies on the Ukrainian side of the war zone.

"These synthetic substances are distributed in the same way as they were distributed in the armed forces of Nazi Germany. People "high" are capable of feats at the cost of their lives. <...> It is clear that this is in Zelensky's interests. <...> But this is agony", - concluded the former MP.

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Before that, on January 21, a captured Ukrainian military officer, Dmytro Verbytskyy, said that AFU servicemen were widely using narcotic substances supplied to them by their compatriots. According to him, his fellow servicemen ordered drugs in the training camp and had them brought to them without any problems.

Martial law in Ukraine has been in effect since February 2022. At the same time Zelensky signed a decree on general mobilization. Most men between the ages of 18 and 60 are forbidden to leave the country. In April 2024, the head of the Kiev regime approved the law on tougher mobilization.