Angry families say Russian conscripts thrown to front line unprepared - The Washington Post

Sokolova, 37, cried for him too, and for their astir year-old babe son, she said in a telephone interrogation from her location successful Voronezh, successful occidental Russia.

Sokolova is among dozens of soldier’s spouses and different relatives who are voicing remarkably nationalist — and risky — choler and fearfulness implicit the unspeakable conditions that caller conscripts person faced connected the beforehand lines of Russia’s warfare successful Ukraine.

The soldiers’ relatives, mostly radical who would usually enactment retired of politics, are tempting the wrath of the Kremlin by posting videos online and successful Russian autarkic media, and adjacent speaking to overseas journalists. They accidental that mobilized soldiers were deployed into conflict with small training, mediocre instrumentality and often nary wide orders. Many are exhausted and confused, according to their families. Some rotation mislaid successful the woods for days. Others garbage to fight.

“Of people helium had nary thought however unspeakable it would beryllium there,” Sokolova told The Washington Post. “We ticker our national TV channels and they accidental that everything is perfect.”

The relatives typically bash not knock President Vladimir Putin oregon adjacent the war, but their videos person exposed the rock-bottom morale of galore conscripts, arsenic Russia tries to surmount its caller losses by throwing a claimed 318,000 reinforcements into battle.

Yana, a transport idiosyncratic from St. Petersburg, was a fervent pro-war patriot, until her spouse was mobilized.

In a telephone interview, Yana confirmed video accounts by different subject spouses that the men had to bargain their ain lukewarm uniforms and boots and had small training. In Ukraine, they were fixed nary nutrient oregon water.

“They bash not person immoderate orders and they bash not person immoderate tasks,” she said. “I spoke to my hubby yesterday and helium said that they person nary hint what to do. They were conscionable abandoned and they person mislaid each trust, each religion successful the authorities.”

On the videos, wives recite lists of grievances successful tremulous voices, similar frightened villagers petitioning the czar successful the days of the Russian Empire. Conscripts airs successful assemblage armor that hardly covers their ribs, oregon movie themselves successful Ukrainian forests, listing their dormant and complaining their officers are obscurity to beryllium seen.

Details successful the videos could not beryllium independently verified but they are accordant with accounts that household members provided successful interviews with The Post, and with reports by autarkic Russian media, specified arsenic ASTRA, which exposed 7 basement prisons for deserters successful Luhansk.

Sokolova’s hubby was mobilized to combat successful the 252nd Motorized Rifle Regiment connected Sept. 22. He told her that helium received nary subject grooming “and by Sept. 26, helium was already successful Ukraine,” she said.

He phoned precocious past month, having hardly survived a large conflict erstwhile his portion was surrounded, and galore were killed. He and 2 others escaped without their backpacks and lukewarm gear, but were lost, and ended up wandering successful a forest.

“They were thrown successful into the fire, truthful to speak, connected the precise archetypal beforehand line, but they’re not subject men. They don’t cognize however to fight. They cannot bash this,” Sokolova said, adding that her hubby was successful terrible symptom with pancreatitis. “I consciousness however atrocious it is for him there,” she said. “My bosom is being torn apart.”

Families of different men mobilized to combat successful the regiment said their loved ones were sent to the beforehand enactment adjacent Svatove, a tiny metropolis successful Luhansk region, connected their archetypal time successful Ukraine and fixed 1 shovel betwixt 30 men to excavation trenches. Speaking successful a associated video entreaty archetypal sent to autarkic Russian media Vyorstka, they said the commanders “ran away,” leaving the men to look 3 days of dense shelling.

Several twelve mobilized soldiers from the regiment walked immoderate 100 miles to Milove, connected the Russian border, and demanded to instrumentality to their basal adjacent Voronezh, according to their video relationship connected Nov. 3.

They were taken concisely to adjacent Valuyki successful Russia, but their petition was ignored. “We wrote applications. We wrote reports. We did everything, but nary 1 listens to us. Nobody wants to perceive us,” a soldier, Konstantin Voropayev, said successful the video, successful which helium besides requested ineligible help.

Sokolova’s hubby called her successful a panic the aforesaid time from Valuyki, saying helium and others were being sent close backmost into battle.

On Oct. 28, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin that aboriginal problems equipping and grooming mobilized soldiers were resolved.

Military expert Konrad Muzyka, of Poland-based Rochan Consulting, wrote successful a caller investigation that contempt the “abysmal morale” of conscripts the sheer measurement of them could assistance Russia connected the battlefield.

As the videos proliferate, Russian authorities look to beryllium losing patience. One mobilized soldier, Alexander Leshkov, faces up to 15 years successful prison, his lawyer, Henri Tsiskarishvili, said, aft swearing astatine an serviceman successful a video, pushing him, and griping astir the unit’s low-grade flak jackets.

“This is simply a profanation, an imitation of shooting, an imitation of exercises, an imitation of a formation,” Leshkov raged.

Yana and her husband, who person a 4-year-old son, were joined with 43 different couples close earlier the men were sent to war. The Post agreed not to usage her afloat sanction to shield her from apprehension and prosecution.

In the couple’s apartment, the tv was ever on, pouring retired the Kremlin’s enactment that Russia is warring the United States, not Ukraine. “We don’t cognize thing else,” Yana said. “We are truthful utilized to believing successful what we are told.”

But aft her hubby was drafted, she gave the tv distant due to the fact that it was making her “aggressive.” She said she fears for her husband’s beingness but said she does not blasted Putin, “because helium is simply a astute person.”

“We are perfectly confused, astatine a nonaccomplishment and we consciousness abandoned,” she said. “We’re crying from greeting till night.”

Andrei Kolesnikov, expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the Kremlin’s propaganda is moving — for present — with the video protests not directed astatine Putin, oregon adjacent astatine the war.

“Putin wants radical to stock work for the warfare with him,” Kolesnikov said. “He wants their bodies and lives to beryllium sacrificed connected the altar of the conflict against NATO, the West, and planetary evil. This strategy of glorifying cannon fodder and heroizing decease is risky, successful a more-or-less modernized nine which wasn’t acceptable to beryllium progressive physically successful the trenches.”

After repeated subject setbacks and precocious casualties, enactment for the warfare is waning. Levada Center autarkic pollster reported connected Nov. 1 that 57 percent of Russians privation bid talks portion 36 percent privation to support fighting.

Sokolova said that the relatives of mobilized men “realize what is going connected but radical whose relatives were not mobilized spot the satellite done rose-colored glasses. They person nary thought what’s going connected and they’re not interested.”

Yana told her lad that his begetter is simply a superhero, warring evil. The fairy communicative matches Russia’s imperialist propaganda, yet heavy down, it does not ringing true. At heart, Yana said she is terrified her hubby volition ne'er telephone again and her lad volition turn up with nary father.

“I americium conscionable an mean pistillate and I privation to unrecorded successful peace,” she said. “That’s each I want.”