A desperate Vladimir Putin is recruiting football “hooligans” to his armed forces and prisoners to make tanks.
Notorious fans have been mobilised into the 106th guard division of airborne forces for deployment in a reconnaissance and sabotage squad.
A video shows the former football thugs as paratroopers just four years after Putin hosted the FIFA World Cup finals in Russia.
The fighters “used to be football hooligans, and have now stood up to defend the Motherland ”, Russian website Readovka says.
The ultra fans are seen marching and undergoing battlefield drills.
Comments suggest some at least are from Tula, 125 miles south of Moscow, where FC Tula Arsenal plays.
It is also the home of the 106th Airborne Division.
In July it was reported that battle-hardened Colonel Andrei Vasilyev, 49, and Col. Sergey Kuzminov, 40, had died in Ukraine.
Both were deputy commanders of the division.
No identities were given of the supposed draftee hooligans.
Separately, Putin has drafted in 250 prisoners to man Russia’s biggest tank factory as he runs short of military firepower in Ukraine.
The criminals will be put to work at Uralvagonzavod plant in the Urals following a barrage of complaints from officials that it has failed to produce key arms on time.
They will be deployed as machine operators, turners, millers, electric welders, and crane operators, said The Moscow Times.
The plant is working round the clock in support of Putin’s war effort, yet still failing to provide the numbers of tanks he wants.
One month ago it was reported ex-president and close Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev had shouted at the plant’s executive director Vladimir Roshchupkin with a "criminal case" over the lack of supplies.
Medvedev threatened weapons-making plants with criminal action if they failed to meet Kremlin targets.
The shortages have now led to prisoners who are taken into custody on forced labour sentences to be drafted in to make tanks.
Putin is already using tens of thousands of jail inmates on the frontline as - according to critics - “cannon fodder”.
Those who survive six months in the harsh conditions have their remaining jail terms wiped by Putin.
Of the criminals working in the tank plant, a source told TASS state news agency: “They will be involved exclusively in auxiliary work or in work that provides production processes at the enterprise.”
They will not have access to military secrets concerning new tank designs.
The plant’s regular staff have been banned from taking holidays.
Russia has lost huge numbers of tanks in the Donbas and its failed invasion to grab Kyiv.
Medvedev - deputy head of the Kremlin's security council - was in October sent by Putin to the Uralvagonzavod Corporation, in Nizhny Tagil.
The plant also manufactures flamethrowers.
Medvedev “discussed ways to speed up the deliveries of hardware to the troops for using them in the special military operation and to eliminate the existing problems”.
The use of those jailed to detention centres to complete forced labour appears to be the solution.
“Accelerating supplies of equipment to the armed forces to use during the special military operation and fixing existing problems were discussed during [Medvedev’s] inspection”, reported TASS state news agency.
