‘We were completely exposed’: Russian conscripts say hundreds killed in attack - The Guardian

Hours aft Aleksei Agafonov arrived successful the Luhansk portion connected 1 November arsenic portion of a battalion of caller conscripts, his portion were handed shovels and ordered to excavation trenches passim the night.

Their digging, which they took turns to bash due to the fact that of the deficiency of disposable shovels, was abruptly interrupted successful the aboriginal hours of the adjacent time arsenic Ukrainian artillery lit up the entity and shells started raining down connected Agafonov and his unit.

“A Ukrainian drone archetypal flew implicit us, and aft that their artillery started to lb america for hours and hours, nonstop,” Agafonov, who survived the shelling, told the Guardian successful a telephone interrogation connected Monday.

“I saw men being ripped isolated successful beforehand of me, astir of our portion is gone, destroyed. It was hell,” helium said, adding that his unit’s commanders abandoned them conscionable earlier the shelling started.

Agafonov was called up connected 16 October alongside 570 different conscripts successful Voronezh, a metropolis successful the south-west of Russia, arsenic portion of Vladimir Putin’s nationwide mobilisation propulsion that has seen much than 300,000 men drafted to spell and combat successful a warfare that the Kremlin calls its “special subject operation”.

After the attacks stopped, Agafonov, with astir a twelve different soldiers, retreated from the wood extracurricular the Luhansk municipality of Makiivka to the adjacent Russian-controlled metropolis of Svatove. In Svatove, Agafonov and his radical moved into a deserted building, trying to interaction different mobilised soldiers who had been with him that night.

According to Agafonov’s estimates, lone 130 draftees retired of the 570 survived the Ukrainian attack, which would marque it the deadliest known incidental involving conscripts since the commencement of the mobilisation thrust astatine the extremity of September.

“And galore who survived are losing their minds aft what happened. No 1 wants to spell back,” Agafonov said.

The incidental points to Russia’s willingness to propulsion hundreds of ill-prepared conscripts connected to the frontline successful Ukraine’s east, wherever immoderate of the heaviest warring has been taking place, successful an effort to stem Kyiv’s advances.

There is increasing choler successful Russia arsenic much coffins instrumentality from Ukraine, bringing location the remains of conscripts.

Some of the details surrounding past week’s shelling could not beryllium independently verified. But the Guardian spoke to a 2nd soldier, arsenic good arsenic 2 household members of surviving soldiers, who gave akin accounts.

“We were wholly exposed, we had nary thought what to do. Hundreds of america died,” said the 2nd soldier, who asked to stay anonymous. “Two weeks of grooming doesn’t hole you for this,” helium said, referring to the constricted subject grooming conscripts received anterior to being sent to Ukraine.

The Russian investigative outlet Verstka, which archetypal reported connected the incidental connected Saturday, cited the relationship of a 3rd soldier, Nikolai Voronin, who likewise described coming nether Ukrainian occurrence successful the aboriginal hours of 2 November.

“There were tons of dead, they were lying everyplace … Their arms and legs were torn off,” Voronin told Verstka. “The shovels we utilized to excavation our trenches were present being utilized to excavation retired the dead.”

The shelling has led to anguish successful Voronezh, wherever a radical of wives of the mobilised men recorded an aggravated video connection connected Saturday addressing the section governor.

“On the precise archetypal day, they enactment the draftees connected the frontline. The bid near the battlefield and fled,” Inna Voronina, the woman of a drafted worker whose destiny is unknown, said successful the video.

The parent of different worker tin beryllium heard saying: “They archer america implicit the telephone that our sons are live and steadfast and adjacent fulfilling their subject duty. How the hellhole are they live and steadfast erstwhile they were each killed there?”

Last Friday, Putin boasted that Russia had mobilised 318,000 radical into its equipped forces, citing a precocious fig of “volunteers”. He went connected to invoke the fashionable Russian saying “we don’t permission our ain behind”, claiming the operation was “not bare words”.

But the chaotic mobilisation campaign, and the casualties that person followed since, person drawn disapproval among adjacent the astir enthusiastic supporters of the war.

In a scathing connection connected Telegram, Anastasia Kashevarova, a well-connected pro-war journalist, condemned Russian commanders connected the crushed who she said were mobilising untrained men.

“Groups of [mobilised men] are abandoned without communication, without the indispensable weapons, without medicines, without the enactment of artillery,” she said. “Zinc coffins are already coming. You told america that determination would beryllium training, that they would not beryllium sent to the frontline successful a week. Did you prevarication again?”

In 1 video, purportedly filmed astatine a grooming centre successful Kazan, the superior of Russia’s Tatarstan region, dozens of precocious mobilised men are seen berating its subject enactment implicit a deficiency of pay, h2o and food. An serviceman identified arsenic Maj Gen Kirill Kulakov is seen retreating arsenic the ample assemblage of enraged conscripts outcry insults astatine him.

Perhaps sensing the increasing discontent, Putin said connected Monday that helium planned to “personally sermon with Russians” the issues surrounding enactment for the mobilised. He urged section officials to “pay attention” to mobilised soldiers and their needs.

Despite the seemingly precocious costs, the mobilisation thrust has truthful acold not resulted successful Russia gaining caller ground, according to a caller study from the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based thinktank.

The study said the Russian service was “wasting the caller proviso of mobilised unit connected marginal gains” alternatively of massing capable soldiers to guarantee success.

“Russian forces would apt person had much occurrence successful specified violative operations if they had waited until capable mobilised unit had arrived to amass a unit ample capable to flooded Ukrainian defences,” the institute said past Thursday.

In different motion indicating mediocre morale and communications astatine the front, respective pro-Kremlin journalists published an unfastened missive reportedly from an elite Russian naval infantry portion that criticised its superiors’ decision-making aft immense losses successful what it called an “incomprehensible” battle connected the colony of Pavlivka.

Russian forces launched an violative connected Pavlivka, south-west of Donetsk, connected 2 November, according to the Ukrainian subject and pro-Russia officials. Four days later, the 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade reportedly accused its subject leaders of the nonaccomplishment of 300 men successful a missive to Oleg Kozhemyako, the politician of their location portion successful the far-east of Russia.

“We were thrown into an incomprehensible offensive,” the missive was quoted arsenic saying by a fig of salient pro-war bloggers.

While the Guardian was not capable to independently verify the contents of the letter, Kozhemyako appeared to admit that it was genuine but said it overstated the existent standard of the losses.

“We contacted the commanders. Yes, determination are losses, there’s dense fighting, but they are acold from what is written successful this appeal,” helium said successful a video connection connected his Telegram channel. “I americium definite that successful immoderate lawsuit the concern volition beryllium analysed and the competent authorities volition springiness their assessment.”