Russians on the front lines are mutinying, fighting among themselves and getting lost in the chaos of a faltering offensive, videos and messages from inside Vladimir Putin’s army show.
ecently mobilised soldiers are refusing orders to face “certain death” by joining “human wave” attacks that they say are destroying entire units at a time.
Some are appealing to Mr Putin in videos, while others are standing up to officials sent to quell the rebellion.
Reports are emerging of fighters being locked in basements for declining to become targets.
Meanwhile, the Russian army has created a new unit to round up all the “lost” soldiers deserting, fleeing or struggling to find their teams.
Soldiers from at least 16 different regions have recorded video messages since early February to blame commanders for trying to use them in “human wave” attacks, according to the Russian media outlet Verstka.
Ukrainian forces are reporting staggering Russian losses – between 600 to 1,000 men a day. Russia’s long-awaited offensive is largely considered to have stalled amid a gruelling battle to take the small city of Bakhmut.
Read More
One of the most striking recent calls for help from soldiers came from a group of men who were called up from eastern Siberia’s Irkutsk region. The man said he and his comrades were sent to the occupied Donetsk region, ostensibly to be a patrol force only to find out they were to join a now notorious human wave attack outside Avdiivka.
“We’re just sent in for slaughter. The commanders are telling us in the face we’re disposable soldiers and our only chance to go back home is to get injured in fighting,” the soldier said.
Ruslan Leviev, head of the investigative Conflict Intelligence Team that has been tracing Russian troops since 2014, said: “We don’t know how much of this discontent is left unpublicised but those videos most likely speak to the use of ‘human wave attacks’.”
Soldiers often hide their faces and rarely speak to reporters, fearing that publicity would backfire against them or their families.
In another widely shared video, filmed in darkness, a Russian says: “Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin], this is a plea from men mobilised from the Irkutsk region. We’re asking you to look into the illegal and criminal orders of our commanders and take action.”
He says the unit of his predecessors who made a similar appeal was “almost completely wiped out”. After four pleas from the 1,439th regiment, the men’s female relatives recorded a desperate video last week asking Putin, “our only hope”, to “save our men”.
In response, Russia’s defence ministry released a video of a masked soldier who said he was from Irkutsk and that he was willing to serve.
Mr Leviev of the Conflict Intelligence Team said: “The frequency and volume of those complaints are still not enough to get the Russian commanders to give up the tactic of human wave attacks.” (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2023)
Telegraph Media Group Limited [2023]