Several groups of Russian soldiers mobilized in Ukraine denounce the conditions under which they are sent into combat without preparation or equipment, in videos circulating in Russia in recent days. Everyone is asking Vladimir Putin to intervene.
Videos have been appearing on Russian social networks since the beginning of February. They testify both to the violence of the fighting on the Ukrainian front and to the morality and duplicity that can prevail in the ranks of the Russian army.
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All portray mobilized soldiers complaining about being sent into battle in such unprepared and disorganized conditions as to leave them little chance of survival.
“Sent to attack without support”
Another common element in these videos, of which franceinfo has viewed a dozen, is that these soldiers denounce the fact that they were drawn into the ranks of the separatist forces of the Lugansk and Donetsk republics, like these soldiers from Irkutsk, Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk, which recorded a message addressed directly to Vladimir Putin that was broadcast on a Siberian Telegram channel on March 7. “We were transferred to the First Slavic Brigade of the Donetsk People’s Republic and sent to storm fortified areas without artillery support or heavy equipment. In short, we were sent to battle under mortar fire, artillery and heavy machine guns,” said one of the hooded men appearing in the video, which was filmed in a basement.
In another, very similar video released a few days earlier, mobilized soldiers from Kaliningrad, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk also complained that they were “sent out of contact with unit commanders, without fire support, and were not sent to attack either […] Artillery support and aerial reconnaissance”. Above all, these soldiers call on the Russian President to “intervene urgently because punitive measures are being prepared [eux]The soldiers’ spokesman claims his superiors promise to “lock them up in basements, conduct individual interrogations and find the rebels.” published videos demonstrating this.
“You are expendable and you will die”
According to this group of mobilizers from northern Russia, six of them died in a ditch in the first attack. Like the Siberian soldiers, they say the separatist officers declared them “expendable” and “told them they were going to die.” They are therefore demanding reintegration into the regular Russian army, in which they seem to have more confidence. According to a military expert quoted by Russian media 7X7, the Separatist forces, who lack men on the ground, will indeed mistreat these soldiers from distant regions.
Another point that most of these videos have in common is the lying strategy of the Russian army leadership, to which these men apparently fell victim. Most of them claim that they were told they would be restricted to second or even third line duties, like the Siberian soldiers who thought they were “supervising the facilities and ensuring the defense of the territory” and who ” “Some of these men are overweight, over 50 years old and absolutely incapable of taking on such missions,” the wife of one of them recently explained on another Telegram channel.
Local authorities react
Faced with the complaints of those mobilized and their families, regional authorities are sometimes embarrassed when relatives demand explanations, as these testimonies go against the reassuring promises originally made to them. Locally elected officials therefore feel compelled to respond to complaints. The governor of Belgorod therefore announced that he would contact the Ministry of Defense. The head of the Orenburg region seized the military prosecutor. The governor of Irkutsk even sent a “special commission” of veterans to the Donetsk region to investigate the situation of conscripts. We don’t know the conclusions at the moment. In the previous months, similar initiatives did not seem to fundamentally change the situation of Russian soldiers at the front. Vladimir Putin never answered these interpellations directly.