Many soldiers, therefore, have chosen to be fired or transferred rather than going into the meat grinder, he said. Sergey joined the army as a conscript - most Russian men between the ages of 18-27 must complete one year of compulsory military service. What's he waiting for? I didn't look back.". By early July, Kaminsky said, he'd had enough: He refused to fight, one of 78 soldiers from his brigade who have refused orders. "You've got relatives there. 2023 BBC. April 7, 2022. Despite speculation beforehand, Putin did not formally declare war on Ukraine during his Victory Day speech on 9 May. Russian servicemen near Kherson, Ukraine - 20 May 2022, By Olesya Gerasimenko and Kateryna Khinkulova, A convoy of Russian military vehicles heading towards the Donbas region - 23 February 2022, Local residents by a destroyed Russian tank in Sloboda, Chernihiv, Ukraine - 8 May 2022, Banner with the letters Z and V, in support of the Russian military, on a building in Moscow - 19 May 2022, Russian service personnel rehearse for the Victory Day Parade in Moscow - 7 May 2022, President Vladimir Putin visits soldiers wounded during the conflict in Ukraine - 25 May 2022, Pinned down by Russian fire in key front line village. I told him that he was a zombie. Some Russian troops are refusing to return to fight in Ukraine because of their experiences on the front line at the start of the invasion, according to Russian human rights lawyers and activists. He simply declares that he has anti-war convictions. Later that month he received an order to return to Ukraine - but told his commander that he was not prepared to go. Earlier Ukraines General Staff reported that invading Russian forces were seeing mass desertion among its troops amid Ukrainian military successes. Servicemen fire a 120mm mortar towards Russian positions at the frontline near Bakhmut, Ukraine. Also, according to Dmytrashkivskyi, the 136th Brigade, which was formed for the war in Chechnya, has arrived in the Vuhledar area. The range of experience varies. I want to return to my family and not in a casket.. Youre just a soldier for them; youre nobody.. But significant damage has been done to that army, which has confronted logistical problems, poor morale and an underestimated Ukrainian resistance. RUSSIAN soldiers are suffering from low morale with some reportedly refusing to fight the war in Ukraine, according to a member of an elite Russian army unit on the ground. Dmitri's refusal to fight in the war is the latest in a string of reports of Russian soldiers disobeying orders to join the fight. My daughter was born three months ago. . Russian rights activists say hundreds, possibly thousands of troops are balking at orders to deploy, to keep fighting, or to remain on the battlefield without rotating out or home. Andrei, a Russian lieutenant, stopped fighting. A Russian military unit deployed in Ukraine's south has refused to fight over a lack of vital supplies such as water, Ukraine said Sunday. But his stand changed after the soldier found out he had been sent to fight with "no intelligence gathering, no preparation and no cover". The soldier said he broke his contract and resigned from the brigade before the February 24 invasion, once he realized it was in fact going forward. They were furious. "We rushed forward with short overnight stays, without trenches, without reconnaissance. But without conscript battalions, Russia could soon struggle to hold the territory it currently controls in Ukraine, especially as Ukraine receives better equipment from Nato, he said. The soldier was a serving officer in the Russian army when Mr Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 23. The beach, just north of Odessa in southern Ukraine, was defended with mines and anti-tank hedgehogs. There have been an estimated 140 soldiers put behind bars in eastern Ukraine, with some allegedly guarded by pro-Moscow mercenaries in a military base surrounded by land mines, the Guardian reported. ", "People here don't understand how much danger we're in. In the southern Russian town of Budyonnovsk, on the home base for the 205th Cossack Motorized Rifle Brigade, commanders have erected a wall of shame with the names, ranks, and photographs of some 300 soldiers who have disobeyed orders in the Ukraine war. Their official status is missing in action. Many of us simply did not want to go back, said Dmitri, a member of the unit who asked not to be identified with his real name. In all, 78 soldiers including Kaminsky openly challenged his orders, and demanded to be either sent home or reassigned, he said. A video of the incident that circulated online showed the soldier complaining of poor training, using obscenities, and calling the drills an imitation. Benyash said "hundreds and hundreds" of soldiers had been in touch with his team for advice on how they could avoid being sent to fight. We had no food, no water, he said. His superiors argued that he should not be given the monetary compensation of up to 2,500 that wounded Russians are entitled to by law because his injury took place on Russian soil meaning it did not fall under the rules of Russias special military operation. As they stopped for the evening in an abandoned farm, their commander said: "Well, as you will have worked out by now, this is not a joke. A Russian court sentenced a 24-year-old professional soldier to five years in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, officials have said. They would be looking at time in prison.. Command post guard duty? (Reuters Photo) Russian soldiers fighting the war in Ukraine are in disarray and crying as they are asked to "fire at . Among them were 12 national guardsmen from Russia's . A Russian soldier was sentenced in July for refusing to fight in the Ukraine war. "It's a way of making people go back into that bloodbath," says Elena Popova from Russia's Movement of Conscientious Objectors. Then I got a text message saying he and four other officers had been put in a basement. Early in the war, Kaminsky said, commanders ordered the brigade to defend a line opposite Ukrainian forces that stretched up to 64 kilometers in length (40 miles) about four times what the brigades troop strength could reasonably protect. The troops are getting exhausted they wont be able to keep this up for a long period.. It's not a war of liberation.' Your effort and contribution in providing this feedback is much The airline carrier Wizz Air has announced it will . Hes not refusing to carry out orders, so the article on insubordination or disobeying orders isnt relevant either, because hes not refusing to do so, he said. Sergey was told that returning to the unit was important because simply leaving could be interpreted as desertion, which can result in a two-year sentence in a disciplinary battalion. Such an action would be "premature" without having assessed the harm to the military service he was involved in, the prosecutor said. He says his convoy - travelling through northern Ukraine - broke up after just four days when a bridge they were about to cross exploded, killing comrades ahead of them. Finance chiefs at a Group of 20 conference in India this weekend issued a joint statement condemning Moscow for its war in Ukraine, with only China and Russia declining to sign. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine. "I'm morally exhausted. It doesn't make sense. Nearly all . We've received your submission. The refusenik troops add to Russian commanders headaches as they struggle to replenish spent and exhausted units across the roughly 480-kilometer (300-mile) front line stretching from east of Kharkiv in the northeast down to Kherson in south-central Ukraine. 'You're Nobody' By Timofei Rozhanskiy. Within the dense smoke caused by the propaganda of one side or the other, the truth is that there does seem to be a good number of Russian soldiers who have refused to fight in Ukraine. The head of Britain's GCHQ spy service said on Wednesday that new intelligence showed some Russian soldiers in Ukraine had refused to carry out orders, sabotaged their own equipment and . Reports from Russia said authorities would call up 300,000 people with "relevant" skills or military experience. Troops are saying no to officers, knowing that punishment is light while Russia is not technically at war. He had helped oversee fighting in eastern Ukraine. While speaking, he blew cigarette smoke into an officers face, who responded by pushing him away. Daughter of Putin ally dies when . "He told me he had refused to lead his men to a certain death," Oxana tells me. The commanders know only violence and intimidation. CNN's Frederik Pleitgen reports on the conflict in Ukraine as Russian President Vladimir Putin boasts of success, though some of his soldiers refuse to fight. But they eventually calmed down because there wasnt much they could do, he said. They haven't been seen for five months. I have served for five years in the army. Army commanders try to intimidate contract soldiers into staying with their units, according to Russian human rights lawyer Alexei Tabalov. At the beginning of April, Sergey was sent back over the border to a camp on the Russian side. In Kononov's case, court documents say that he pleaded guilty to evading military service and that he testified he wanted to take a temporary break from fighting in Ukraine. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters. Russia has suffered a series of military setbacks in the Ukraine war that triggered criticism of the army's leadership. If a soldier acts according to such procedures, then he cannot be criminally prosecuted for this. According to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the occupiers are not able to resolve problems with manning their units. At some point, Kaminsky's unit was then transferred to Luhansk, in Ukraines Donbas region. About 140 Russian soldiers have reportedly been jailed so far. Conscripts could fill some of the gaps, but they will be poorly trained. On 15 February, Ukraines Defence Intelligence reported that Russias losses were the largest since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. A Warner Bros. He bombarded military officials, prosecutors and investigators with appeals for help. Ukrainian . Now, at least four want their superiors punished for the seemingly illegal arrests, according to the newspaper. The world mourned a year of death and conflict this week as Friday February 24 marked the first anniversary of Vladimir Putin's order for his aggressive Russian Armed Forces to invade Ukraine.. "Later I was told that the building they were in had been shelled and that all five men were missing. A Russian court sentenced Marsel Kandarov to five years in prison for refusing to take part in the special military operation. Like us on Facebook to see similar stories . If we had moved gradually, if we had checked the roads for mines many losses could have been avoided.". "As an officer he understood that if they went ahead, they wouldn't get out alive. For many Russian soldiers, the war in Ukraine is one they don't want to fight. "The commanders' aim is to keep the soldiers down there. Dmytrashkivskyi added the Russians had carried out 15 assaults over the past day, while the same number stood at 60 assaults per day a month ago. R ussian troops have destroyed a concrete dam built in Ukraine's Kherson Region in 2014 to cut off water to Crimea, the RIA news agency quoted the governor of Russian-annexed Crimea Sergei . He's changed completely. "In these months [of compulsory military service] that I have left, anything - including the worst - could happen. Moscow initially put about 80% of its main ground combat forces 150,000 men into the war in February, according to western officials. Kaminsky said discontent had been building in the unit for weeks, if not months. The Russian defense ministry didnt respond to the Guardians request for comment. We've changed them to protect their identities. A Russian soldier has been sentenced for refusing to fight in the war in Ukraine. After that, I wont look at any new offers.. A Russian serviceman takes part in military exercises outside the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in the Russian Far East on September 4. In July, the father of a Russian soldier told The Insider that troops were being detained or moved to a detention center in the occupied Luhansk region if they attempted to leave their posts. "Some soldiers, under the . People in Kyiv are being warned of street fighting and "subversive groups" on the third day of the Russian invasion, with reports of 198 Ukrainians dead nationwide since troops first crossed the . He is now home in Russia, having taken legal advice to avoid being sent back to the front line. The Kremlin has declined to call for a general mobilization to replenish lost troops, instead using what analysts have described a covert, hybrid campaign to recruit fresh troops: using private military companies, extended age limitations, lucrative financial incentives, and sometimes coercive persuasion to bolster the ranks. He told me his face was covered in blood," the father said while speaking to the outlet. The NY Times published a story on this topic today titled "Russia's New Offensive Sends Conscripts Into the Teeth of Ukraine's Lines." "Every day, sometimes more than once a day, small groups come forward and try to take our positions," said one of the Ukrainian soldiers who participated in the fight, and who asked to be identified only by his nickname, Diesel, for security reasons. Their identities have been protected by the BBC. ", Stas was a serving officer when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. Three days of duty? 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