War in Ukraine: Russian soldiers say abandoned at the front by their hierarchy

View of destroyed buildings in Vuhledar, Ukraine, March 26, 2023. Not far away, where the fighting continues, Russian soldiers say they are abandoned in the trenches by their superiors. via REUTERS - HEAD OF DONETSK CIVIL-MILITARY A

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

Russian servicemen send a video message to Vladimir Putin in which they say that their superiors, whom they have "never seen", abandoned them in trenches near Vugledar in Donbass, an area where heavy fighting is taking place. The video was broadcast by Telegram channels of pro-Russian military bloggers.

Advertising

Read more

« 

You have before you what remains of the "storm" squad of the fifth brigade of the first corps of the Eighth Army of Russia ": thus begins the video message in which appear 19 men in fatigues, some wearing caps marked with the letter Z.

« 

This is the village of Vodyané, near Donetsk. This is the place where we are making successful progress, according to our media. But in reality, this is not quite the case. The losses are considerable," a Russian soldier says in the video.

The men say they had to hold their positions under incessant artillery and mortar fire for two weeks, with no possibility of retreating, or face execution by Russian forces. Today, they say they are abandoned: "We are without papers, without military booklets ... We were thrown like homeless people into trenches full of corpses. We have nothing left.

If it is often mobilized who challenge the Russian president, this time, according to Georgian experts, it is about officers and experienced soldiers, some of whom fought in the war in Chechnya. In early March, the website Sibir.Realii reported that most of the mobilized members of an Irkutsk regiment, who had repeatedly complained of threats from their commanders, were killed in the battle of Avdyivka.

Newsletter Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

Read on on the same topics:

• Russia
• Ukraine
• Vladimir Poutine