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

ole-lukoye.blogspot.com

23 min

April 25, 2023

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The media spoke to the Russian military and their relatives and found out what the “training” of recruits is, how they are thrown into suicide assaults, forgotten in the forests and left to wait for commands without food and medical care.

According to open sources, almost 20,000 Russian soldiers died in Ukraine, which is higher than the officially recognized losses among Soviet citizens during the ten years of the war in Afghanistan . And 20 thousand are only those whose names are established, the real number can be twice as much. The Americans tend to estimate 200 thousand people, meaning not only those killed, but also the wounded, captured and missing. Faced with a shortage of experienced military personnel, the Russian command sends to the front line not only those who did military service a few years ago, but also people with completely non-combat specialties who were in the reserve, or did not serve at all.

In most cases, training of those mobilized before being transferred to Ukraine is limited to a couple of shots from a machine gun or is not carried out at all. What this leads to was shown by the assault on the Avdeevsky fortified area by mobilized from the Irkutsk region, after which other military personnel began to declare the order to go into battle without preparation. It could be assumed that the hasty transfer of the unprepared mobilized to hell was caused by the big offensive launched in February , and earlier training was still carried out. But this is not so: the lack of training among recruits has been a common practice of the Russian command since the beginning of the war.

Military expert Pavel Luzin notes that the mobilization in Russia affected people who were unmotivated and, for the most part, untrained:

“They recruited those who did not want to fight (otherwise they would have already volunteered), but at the same time were stupid enough, submissive and intimidated not to be able to avoid it. It is useless to teach such people. The intellectual and moral degradation of the Russian army through the involvement of such personnel is a long-standing course of the Kremlin, which has been going on for at least the past two decades. This is combined with the rejection of the reform of military education in 2011 and the general degradation of Russian school education. In other words, in the ground forces and the airborne forces among officers, sergeants and contract soldiers, the dregs of the school education system, distinguished by their humility, predominate.

According to Luzin, a full-fledged term for preparing a soldier for military operations should be at least six months, but in the Russian army, even official standards allow conscripts to be sent to the front earlier: “The standard term for preparing a soldier in the Russian army is 4 months. It is insufficient even under the condition of intensive study, but it is established by a regulatory legal act - Regulations on military service , according to which a conscript can be sent to war after 4 months of service. In reality, the normal training period for a soldier is from 6 to 12 months, depending on the specialty and subject to competent junior commanders. Since the mobilized were only formally in the reserve, they lost all the knowledge and skills they had once acquired. These are the same recruits in terms of their level.”

But even these four months provided by the state for preparation turn into complete profanation. Yaroslav, who served on a contract basis in a military unit in Chebarkul, says that the training ground where the mobilized were supposed to be trained was turned into a tent camp, and all the “training” turned into constant drinking: “In early January, there was a mass transfer from our unit to Ukraine - almost the entire base was cleared. There were eight thousand mobilized, now there is no one left, literally three and a half cripples. Before that, all the mobilized lived in tents at the training ground, not far from the base, and their conscripts played the role of servants - they could pull outfits or tidy up, but there was no question of preparation. When they got 200 thousand on the card, they seemed to have gone crazy. To prevent anyone from trying to leave, they were allowed to raise money and rent a gazelle. Every day they brought the food they wanted on it. From the standard set were booze, cigarettes and meat. Such a "gazelle" was packed to the top every day.

Yaroslav says that in the end, a few months later, the mobilized were sent to Ukraine without training: “For two or three months they only ate and drank, and then they were sent to Ukraine with such “good” training. I have never seen them shoot or do anything. Among the mobilized there were also those who served many years ago, but the situation with them is the same: none of them held a machine gun in their hands and never lived in Spartan conditions. The maximum that they could do in military service was to work as a loader or a janitor.

Due to the lack of training and working weapons, only a few people survived out of the 500 mobilized two weeks later. Yaroslav says that the survivors are most often re-sent to the front: “I came to Chebarkul, met some of the mobilized, and a few days later they were sent to Ukraine. In total, two groups were sent: one - five hundred people, the other - three hundred. After that, several weeks passed, and I again see them in part. All the drunks are standing outside the store. I went up to ask why they were here, and they said that two weeks after they were sent there, they were all killed, only nine of them remained. Out of five hundred people. They were delivered with rusty machine guns of the 70-80s of release - usually none of the mobilized is allowed to sit down for equipment. For two weeks, everyone was bombed, the commanders threw, but they remained, and no one let them go. After everyone there had already been turned into meat, they ran away and returned to the base in Chebarkul. Usually such people are then taken to some basement and kept there. Apparently, they are waiting for them to come to their senses and agree to go to Ukraine again. Now, unfortunately, you can get a bullet both from your own and from strangers.

At first, the Ministry of Defense tried to compensate for the heavy losses in the ranks of the army with the help of the transfer of military contractors, but later they began to send mobilized ones. According to Yaroslav, their training is similar to the skills of those mobilized in the unit in Chebarkul: “Before being transferred to Chebarkul, I served in Tajikistan. I went there because they told me that they weren’t sent to Ukraine from there, but it turned out later that everyone was sent. And now something similar is happening with the mobilized there. I called up the guys with whom I became friends in Tajikistan, and they said that about two hundred mobilized people were recently sent there. The base in Tajikistan was always intended for contract soldiers, no one still understands what they are doing there. Tajikistan is still an Islamic state, with its own customs and culture. At the beginning we were given a whole lecture about how to behave properly. But this does not concern the mobilized, because they are also brought meat and drink from the city every day.”

The lack of preparation is adjacent to the orders of the command to equip and even repair tanks at their own expense. Reports of a shortage of equipment for the mobilized began to appear after the very first days of the announcement of "partial" mobilization. But in fact, the situation is even worse: in addition to buying equipment, the mobilized are required to chip in for new equipment. According to Anatoly, after being sent to the unit, his training was limited to a few shots from a machine gun, but on the other hand, the whole company was forced to throw in an UAZ - so that there was something to ride after being transferred to Ukraine: “The police took me at the entrance, they said that I had been there for four days wanted. When they brought me to the military registration and enlistment office, they explained that there was no need to sign anything - everyone had already signed for me. Voluntarily, I would never do this. As a result, I was sent to a unit in Penza. There was no special preparation, sometimes we were taken to the range to shoot several times - that's all. I realized that if I was sent to Ukraine, then I would die there. I realized that I don’t need all this - life is more expensive, and there is a family.

A month later, I went to the hospital with back pain - I once had a fracture of the spine. I was given a referral to the military medical commission and hospitalized. During my stay in the hospital, a company commander, directly my commander, called me and asked me to purchase an UAZ and a Niva for the needs of the company. Transport was needed so that our company could move around and transport cartridges and some materials already in Ukraine itself. I was just about to be discharged, and I decided to go shopping during a ten-day rehab. However, everything turned out quite differently. When, after being discharged, I arrived at the artillery school - the point of temporary deployment moved there - the major told me that tomorrow I was going to kill.

As a result, the next day I jumped over the fence and went home to my family. But I thought that it would be better to buy a UAZ, so that there would be no problems in the part. I rented an apartment in Penza and started looking for an UAZ. We threw off the whole company on the car, and the money was transferred to the wife of our commander - this is about 250 thousand rubles.

However, when I returned, they told me that a case had been brought against me for leaving the unit without permission. At the same time, I was absent for a short time and bought a car, as the commander asked me. I left the UAZ there, it was then transported to Voronezh, and from there to Ukraine.

The UAZ is needed so that our company can move around and transport ammunition in Ukraine. We chipped in with the whole company.

I was assigned a pre-investigation military medical commission (VVK). There they put me in category A, which, with my sores, is generally incomprehensible to the mind. One employee said that it's okay, my family will cry for two years, and then they will forget. Now I am in a rented apartment, the proceedings are still ongoing, and I am technically seconded to my unit. Recently they called me and said that I should go back there. My lawyer confirmed this and advised me to go to the unit. But we are trying to agree that I do not live there. No one wants to stay in such a place, everything is not good there at all. The guys thump all day, and in the evening they build. The routine is like this. There are no exercises for a long time, because they supposedly have long since passed. Apparently, we are talking about those few times when we were taken to shoot. And the last time I was there Once a colonel came to us and conducted a drill review, showed us what they would give us when we were sent to Ukraine. After that, the guys, of course, were given something, but definitely not in the copy that we saw.”

The Russian army also suffers losses due to the lack of motivation among military personnel and a lack of understanding of the tasks that they must perform on the territory of Ukraine. Most not only do not want to become expendable, but also cannot and do not want to kill. These sentiments are reinforced when the expectations of many of the recruits are not met: they hope to be picked up by professional soldiers, they think that they will be trained, and they are thrown directly into the front line.

The media has repeatedly cited exampleshow the Russian command deliberately sends soldiers into suicide attacks near Maryinka, Donetsk region, in order to identify the firing positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and then cover the Ukrainians with artillery or mortars. It was in this situation that Ekaterina’s brother found himself when he was sent to the “DPR”. He, along with other mobilized - without any training and instructions - was thrown into battle near Maryinka. After that, the military refused to participate in the hostilities: “My brother called me and said:“ We were ordered to go. What to do? I have 20 minutes to make a decision. For non-compliance, they threaten with a court." For me it was a surprise. I thought that he did not participate in any battles, but only trained. After all, when he was transferred to Donetsk, I immediately began to write to him so that he would not get involved in anything and would not go anywhere. But my brother said that he was just being taken for a three-month training. I immediately realized that something was wrong here.

Before this call, he was in Lisichansk preparing trenches for other guys. He was told that they would be taken to the third line, but in fact it looked like this: two sides - on one APU, on the other Russians, and in the middle the guys who were brought to dig, and constant shelling. My brother said that they were not even given shovels. They just said to sit and wait for the materials to arrive.

As a result, they were divided into small groups of several people. They found abandoned houses and settled there to wait for the authorities. They did not even have food - no one gave dry rations. They boarded up the windows, cut open the floor and dug a small hole so that there would be somewhere to hide in case of shelling. They had to dig with camping spoons.

A hole, to hide in case of shelling, was dug with camping spoons.

Two days later they took a car, drove to the market and bought food, water, nails and shovels. They came back and lived like that for another one and a half weeks. Then they came for them, gave them five minutes to get ready and took them back to Donetsk, and then to the front line - first to Aleksandrovka, and then to Maryinka.

My brother is a stormtrooper, and his group had to take some position, but in fact they were just trying to survive. Someone was hiding in the forests, many were shell-shocked, one had half his head blown off by a shell. They did not think to refuse participation until they saw everything with their own eyes.

Only two days passed after the first battle, and they were again sent there. On the phone, my brother told me that many had not yet regained consciousness and were disoriented, and no one was providing them with medical assistance. In the end, they refused to go. Then they were ordered to sit and wait for the commander to sort out the situation, they were threatened with a trial and imprisonment in prison.

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.”

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