Thousands of shocking phone calls, involuntary testimonies confirming the horrors of Bucha, resentment against the Kremlin leader, the incompetence and brutality of Russian commanders, the lack of weapons, food and medicine, and the massacre of civilians. «Putin is crazy. He wants to take over Kyiv, but we will never be able to do that. We’re losing this war. When I come back I’ll drop everything, hell with the army.” “They gave us orders to kill everyone we meet, half the guys in our regiment are gone.” These are the voices of Vlad, Serghiei, Aleksander, made-up names of real Russian soldiers telling family members, wives, girlfriends and boyfriends about the war in Ukraine in wiretap transcripts exclusively published by The New York Times.
The picture is not entirely new – the Pentagon has often reported in recent months that the forces in Moscow are in disarray and with low morale – but it is disturbing, especially considering that the calls from desperate soldiers therefore only dated back to March come month since the invasion of Ukraine. “There are dead bodies in the street. All around are only civilians on the ground. It’s a disaster,” a soldier renamed Nikita urges his partner to protect his identity and avoid backlash. Many confess to capturing and killing civilians in Ukraine, openly admit to raiding homes and businesses, and swear they want to leave the military forever. “Mom, that’s the stupidest decision our government has ever made,” Putin “was terribly wrong,” Serghiei admits. “They just want to fool people on TV and say: ‘Everything is fine, there is no war, only a ‘special operation’, but in reality it is a real damn war,” another soldier unleashed his girlfriend. “There are scattered human limbs already bloated with blood. Nobody picks them up, they’re not ours, they’re damn civilians,” Aleksandr told a relative, horrified. Some reveal that civilians are stripped, stripped of their clothes and eventually slaughtered in the woods. “I’ve never seen so many corpses in my damn life,” a soldier confesses to his mother, telling her he doesn’t want to be a murderer anymore. Unbearable terror for young soldiers, some first combat experiences: “The mood is negative. A guy is crying, another wants to commit suicide. I’m sick of them, »Andrei reveals to a friend. Someone is attacking the commanders for their foolish decisions. “There were 400 soldiers, 38 survived, our commanders sent them to the massacre.”
In the telephone calls of the soldiers at the front, even the propaganda spread by the Kremlin about «Nazi» Ukraine was demolished. We see that people lead normal lives. Very well, as in Russia. And now they are forced to remain locked in a basement. This war is based on a false pretense, nobody needed it ».