“They dug a trench with spoons, chewed leaves, thought only how to hide.” How Russian conscripts are taken to the front without training, supplies and motivation

By nigratan 

nigroll.com

12 min

April 20, 2023

View Original

I understood that it was impossible to stay idle, and began to search for information on the Internet. I tried to figure out how to get him out of there. So I went to the movement of conscientious objectors, where I was immediately told that the case would not go to court, it would simply be closed there. Then the volunteers and I found the guys who arbitrarily left from there in a similar situation and no one put them in jail. They found out all the details and advised the guys to leave from there, but only my brother and his friend decided.

We wanted them to get out through the fields and forests, and then turn to the military police, but in Russia. The commander did not particularly follow the group, so it was not difficult to leave unnoticed. We had a plan according to which they were supposed to land nine kilometers from the checkpoint. However, then I found out that the guys were going to come back. The remaining guys, those who did not go with them, were stripped naked, disarmed and taken away in an unknown direction. They called my brother and said that they were waiting until the evening, otherwise there would be consequences. Thank God, I managed to dissuade them from returning.

Those who did not go with them were stripped naked, disarmed and taken away in an unknown direction.

However, our plan still failed. They went through the forest not for nine kilometers, as planned, but for a maximum of a kilometer from the checkpoint. Naturally, they were noticed and caught already on the territory of the Rostov region. They took away their military cards and called the military police, who told them to be returned back to the “DPR”. In the morning they were taken away, and for three days we did not know where they were or what happened to them. According to the brother, at that time they were doing educational work with them. They were told that they would be released only if they agreed to continue fighting, otherwise they were threatened with a seven-year term. They agreed.

As a result, they were transferred to another company, where the commander is more loyal. I dissuaded them, but they said that they would wait for the holidays. Now they went out on missions two through six and did not climb anywhere - they just sat out in the basements. Sometimes they could say that they went, but in fact they did not go anywhere. Their senior covered. But then the elder was wounded, and there was no one to cover. To get out of there, the brother began to seek leave. In January, he succeeded, but it turned out only for the worse.

He went on vacation and, naturally, did not want to return to the war zone. They began to threaten him with the fact that they would attribute the case of the unauthorized abandonment of the unit and the refusal to carry out orders and transfer it to the investigative committee. They said that no one had ever let him go on any vacation - they don’t sign documents there, so it’s very difficult to prove something.

As a result, on the advice of a lawyer, my brother returned to the unit, but not in the “DPR”, but in Rostov. Spent about three days there. He was persuaded to return back, but he insisted on his own and began to collect documents in order to apply for a military medical commission. In parallel, we sent a report for transfer to an alternative. But they say that he has no right to ask for some kind of transfer, because the presidential decree on mobilization cancels everything that happened before. We think to pull it out at the expense of health. There is no other way, otherwise the truth will be an article.

In addition to my brother, 200 people did not return from vacation. Nobody wants to return there. Even during that first mission, when they were being fired on from all sides, all the guys were only thinking about how to hide, not how to hit someone. The brother still cannot stop looking at what lies under his feet while walking, and tenses up from the sound of the ambulance siren.

The guys who remained to fight reported that the unit commander had come to them and arranged a debriefing. Putting a gun to the head of one guy, he said to the company commander: if someone else refuses to go into battle, we will boldly shoot everyone in the head, and there will be nothing for it.

Neglect of military ethics, widespread arbitrariness, planning errors and chaos constantly accompany the Russian command. Officers refuse to follow orders, and commanders systematically abandon soldiers on the battlefield, leaving them without communication and further orders. Aysel, the wife of one of the mobilized, says that after her husband was transferred to the Lugansk region, his company was left in the forest without communication and food: “A month after my husband was taken to the unit, I lost contact with him and only through the wives of other mobilized people found out that he was sent to Ukraine. One day my husband called me from an unknown number. Then I looked up the code on the Internet and realized that it was in Lugansk. He said that they were dropped off in the forest and abandoned - they chewed leaves there for about four days and did not understand what to do and where to go. So they wandered until the necessary battalions found them and attached them to themselves. Even when they were taken away, they had practically no food and water, but when there were many complaints, humanitarian aid began to arrive.”

In April, CIT analysts  stated that among the military personnel who visited Ukraine, about 20-40% do not return. Those who initially refuse to go to the combat zone also contribute to the statistics of total losses. This is exactly what Alexander immediately did when he was mobilized: despite threats and pressure, he flatly refused to sign a contract to be sent to Ukraine and managed to be admitted to a hospital for treatment.

“On September 20, they brought me a summons, where there was not a word about the upcoming mobilization,” says Alexander. - It was said that I had to come "to clarify the credentials." Friends said that you just need to come to the military enlistment office at the appointed time, say that I have changed, and nothing more. I did not expect anything else, so on the 22nd I went to the draft board. There they immediately took away my military ID and told me to wait in the corridor for the military commissar to answer all my questions. No one was allowed outside. The commissar read out a list of 20-25 names, and all of them had to get on the bus and go to the military unit. No one answered our questions, they said that we must follow orders. We didn’t have any medical examination and checks, we didn’t issue mobilization orders in our hands. They just put me on the bus, that's all.

All I had with me was my wallet, passport, and military ID with a summons. With such a set, I left for the military unit - the headquarters of the division of our city, where further distribution took place. Dissenters were ordered to wait, those who did not resist were sent to sign contracts. At the end of the day, ten people remained, and they began to threaten us - they forced us to sign a contract under the threat of imprisonment in prison, they said that we had nowhere to go. Someone got scared and signed, but I and four other people stood their ground. Then we were sent to different units and taken to the bus. I felt bad, and I decided to go to my relatives through the checkpoint. Surprisingly, they let me out. I went for medicines, and when I returned, they told me that everyone who refused to sign the contract would be left in the military registration and enlistment office for the night - everything should be dealt with by the military prosecutor.

All I had with me was my wallet, passport, and military ID with a summons. With such a set, I went to the military unit

The military prosecutor did not come the next day. We were told that we could write a report and go home for the weekend. However, it turned out that I was already on the list of those who arbitrarily left the unit and should appear where I was assigned. Then I went to the military prosecutor's office, where they told me that in any case I had to get to my unit. While I was thinking what to do, they called me and said that I was already on the wanted list and if I didn’t show up, they would open a criminal case.

Already in the unit, I met a woman from the personnel department, who promised to help me, agreeing that I was not fit for service. I wrote a report and went home until next Monday. But there was no answer. Then I wrote a second one, where I undertook to call them every day, but not to come to the unit.

So several months passed. In November, they started calling me from the unit and threatening me with prison. My wife and I began to communicate with the prosecutor's office. We filed a lawsuit, the meeting was appointed at lightning speed, two days later. We lost the court, we were denied all our petitions, even the replacement of military service with an alternative one. At the same time, a letter arrived that if I did not appear in the unit, my case would be transferred to the UK. I arrived, and I was no longer released from the unit.

Then I wrote a report on the passage of the VVK - my psychological state worsened. When I visited a civilian doctor, I was given a provisional diagnosis of an anxiety-depressive disorder. But the doctor at the hospital said I was just a coward. However, I did not give up, and in the end he gave me a recommendation that I be sent to another hospital, because he had an order from above not to put anyone in the D category. hospitals were transported only with escort. I decided to activate my report on the AGS and constantly repeated that I did not want to learn how to kill and I would not.

They didn’t even let me go to the store from the military unit, and they took me to the hospital only with an escort

After some time, I and another mobilized were called to the personnel department of the division headquarters and reprimanded for not fulfilling any official duties. As a result, we were involved in paperwork at the headquarters. Then I was sent for hospitalization, but, to my surprise, not to Podolsk, but to the place where I was originally taken. There was already another doctor, he suggested that I go to the hospital, and here I am. They take tests from me, and I'm waiting for some decisions from above. I was again denied an alternative service, explaining that this was not provided for by federal laws and that we had already lost the court. But in any case, I will not go to kill Ukrainians.”

According to Elena Popova, coordinator of the Conscious Refuseniks movement, it is more difficult to work with those who managed to visit the war zone even for a short time: most of the returnees are in a state of shock and do not understand how to proceed further so that they are not sent there again.

“After the New Year, the number of requests to us has decreased. Everyone already understood that it was not necessary to go somewhere when the summons arrived. Difficulties began to arise with those who returned from Ukraine and are trying to leave. It is difficult for such people to build some kind of line on their own - everyone has problems associated with the psychological state. Such cases are now the majority, but, unfortunately, their number does not correlate with how many people are fighting. In fact, it is a drop in the ocean. Even more problematic with those who are still there. I understand that most of them are injured, and, unfortunately, I cannot give them any clear instructions. Each specific case must be analyzed individually.

A woman approached me, her husband was sent to Lugansk. She said that he was thrown there unprepared, but I don’t deal with preparation issues, my job is to get the guys out of this mess. I told her so, specifying whether they want her husband to stop participating in this crime. They began to talk to me about some sores, but this would not be enough for dismissal. After a while, it turned out that this woman went to her husband in Lugansk with her child. To the war zone. She justified this by saying that they had not seen each other for a long time.

It seems to me that people still do not understand where they are going. We tried to come up with some moves to get him out of there. He just had three days of vacation, and he and his wife rented a hotel room. I offered to do everything so that he was sent to a hospital in Russia, where it was already possible to write a report and refuse military service. But they are all kind of weak-willed, the “LPR” police can approach them and ask for a military ID, and they will give it to them. What for? I tell her, these are not even the military, but simply the “LPR” police, the Russian military personnel are not in their jurisdiction. But no one listens, everyone is afraid of something and lives in a non-existent reality.

They are all kind of weak-willed, the “LPR” police can approach them and ask for a military ID, and they will give it to them.

People who previously had no experience in defending their rights, for the most part, back down before the police and the military. At the very beginning, there were many cases of forced conscription, especially in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where people come to work. Guys could be broken into a hostel room in the middle of the night, demanded to give up their passports, and then taken to the military registration and enlistment office. Some managed to get through to volunteers, but there were many difficult stories during the mobilization period.

I always wonder: why are we found only when their husbands or sons are already in Ukraine, what prevented them from finding us before everything became fatal? Everyone wakes up only when they see ugly conditions, lack of preparation and death.

Everyone wakes up only when they see ugly conditions, lack of preparation and death.

But there is a way out, and many of those soldiers who filed reports avoided being sent to Ukraine. We advise you to put pressure on the alternative service, because we do not see other solutions yet. Medicine very rarely works - only if someone's leg is torn off, but then people are fired without the efforts of our organization.

The main thing to understand is that when you submit a report for an alternative, its goal is not to actually transfer you, but to not be sent to fight. At the beginning of the war, someone else could be released from the unit, but now there are no such cases. Everyone will sit with their reports in parts until the end, and this must be understood.

There was a case when they roughly tried to drag a guy into a train and send him to Ukraine, and he said: first, consider my report. As a result, the commander gave the order to forcibly take him to the station. The mother of this guy came there and started filming everything on camera. The FSB officers were called in, they explained something for a long time, but in the end the guy was taken back to the unit, where the command wrote an appeal to the garrison court with a message that the mobilized had committed a disciplinary offense - he refused to execute the order. The guy’s mother found a lawyer, a hearing was held, and the case was transferred to the military investigation department, and, although the situation is still not clear, they could not send Ukrainians to kill without his consent.”