A new video shows mobilized Russian soldiers blaming their mixed embassy commander and Russian President Vladimir Putin for putting them in danger.
The footage, which is just over a minute long, circulated online on Wednesday and consisted of a group of soldiers from Russia’s Yaroslavl region recording a message specifically addressed to Putin. They claimed their battlefield commander wanted them to withdraw from a mission, but now accuses them of desertion.
“We ask you to find a solution to this situation,” he said message begins, based on an English translation. “The company commander gave us the order to withdraw from the positions when we were shelled by tanks and artillery. The command again gave us no cover and did not support us. We only had assault rifles and all other weapons were damaged.”
“Now they want to declare us deserters because the company commander says he didn’t give us any orders. The commander’s office doesn’t care about us,” they added.
Mobilized soldiers from Russia’s Yaroslav Oblast retreated under heavy fire on orders from the company commander. Now the commander claims he never gave an order, and the men are declared deserters. They ask for help to find a solution. pic.twitter.com/CcMbD9BsSe
— Dmitri (@war translated) January 18, 2023
When they first stood in the recruiting office when they were drafted into the Yaroslavl Oblast, the soldiers said, they were supposed to have been used in “territorial defense.”
“But we were deceived,” they said. “When we came here, we attacked and stayed in the front line. There was no third or fourth line as the President said.”
The footage was given to the wives and mothers of the conscripts and obtained from the Yaroslavl publication Pro Gorod.
A Ukrainian tank drives along a road in Bakhmut, Ukraine, on January 18. Russian President Vladimir Putin, pictured, was called by name by a group of mobilized soldiers from Russia’s Yaroslavl Oblast, who claim they lack equipment and that their commander is not looking after them. Getty Images
A day before the video was released, about 10 wives and mothers went to the publication to talk about their loved ones. The soldiers are reportedly between the ages of 21 and 40 and have been taking part in the war since November 28.
An unnamed woman said that as mentioned in the video, the soldiers were initially told that they faced no serious threats when on the frontlines. Now the women want to share the concerns of the soldiers with Putin, the chairman of the investigative committee Alexander Bastrykin and the military prosecutor of the Russian Federation Valery Petrov.
“My husband was mobilized, we have three children together,” a woman using the pseudonym Oksana told Pro Gorod, according to an English translation. “Children, of course, are proud of their father for defending his homeland. And our husbands did not hide from the mobilization.”
“We all want to win [in the conflict]”, she added. “And that’s why we demand the conditions for it: normal uniforms and weapons, as well as professional military personnel working in hot spots.”
The women also claimed that the soldiers’ entire salaries were used for clothing and gear, including socks, thermal imaging cameras, walkie-talkies and antennas.
Mikhail Troitskiy, a professor of practice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Newsweek that the mobilized soldiers in question were unlikely to remain in the “territorial defense.”
“The conscripts probably knew from the start that they had to fight, but the conditions they faced at the front proved far more dangerous than they had anticipated, and their commanders’ sense of responsibility for their lives [was] much more restricted than they wanted,” said Troitskiy.
In December, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said his country was not ready for the partial mobilization of 300,000 troops that took place in September on Putin’s orders.
Eight mobilized soldiers from Russia’s Kaliningrad region, who first went into battle in September, left the front lines and ordered a taxi to take them 300 miles back home. They were caught and now face up to 15 years in prison for desertion, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported.
Earlier this month, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced that Russia had recruited residents in the town of Horlivka, Donetsk region. Four of the 30 drafted soldiers are said to have been disabled.
Due to the state of war and the increasing number of casualties, a second mobilization was rumored.
Newsweek has reached out to the Ukrainian and Russian defense ministries for comment.