Posted on 11/02/2022 8:54:43 AM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
The military draft announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin sent hordes of fearful fighting-age men fleeing for the border, but even they couldn’t have appreciated the true horror of what those unlucky enough to be mobilized and sent to the frontline in Ukraine are having to face.
Reports of drafted Russians being sent to fight with wildly insufficient training and “barely usable” equipment have abounded for weeks, but a new report suggests that recruits are resorting to pretending to be dead in the heat of battle to save their own lives.
Independent Russian outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe spoke to the wives of three men mobilized into Moscow’s 423rd Guards Motor Rifle Regiment at the end of September. The women, whose names have been changed, said their husbands are now facing court martial for leaving the frontline after being deployed into a living nightmare in Ukraine last month.
The men’s training allegedly consisted of little more than digging trenches at a camp in the forests of Belgorod Oblast in Russia before being transferred to the Luhansk region of Ukraine just two weeks later, on Oct. 14. The recruits were reportedly being commanded by two other mobilized men—neither of whom had combat experience. After their deployment, the troops’ loved ones then didn’t hear from them again until Oct. 26, when the men contacted their wives desperate for help.
One wife of a 24-year-old recruit said her husband’s company had been shelled by artillery for 12 hours, during which one of the commanders was “torn to pieces.” The surviving commander ordered a retreat—only for higher military authorities to command them to turn back to the front. “After they refused to return, they were offered new equipment, bulletproof vests, helmets—or a court martial,” the woman, referred to as “Irina,” said.
She added that her husband, along with 26 other survivors from his company, is now hiding in an abandoned house. “Their bank cards are blocked, they are without a livelihood, without money, without food, without water,” Irina said. “My husband told me that he had not eaten for several days, and we do not know what to do about it.”
Another wife, “Ekaterina,” said her 27-year-old husband was similarly trained only in digging trenches. He was allegedly sent to a section of the front in Ukraine where 76 men had been killed in shelling around two weeks before his arrival.
On Oct. 25, Ekaterina says her husband and his comrades came under a barrage of their own. “For many hours they simply lay on the ground and pretended to be dead for one simple reason: they no longer had any weapons other than machine guns,” Ekaterina said. “And there were mortars against them, drones flew over them, if they even moved a finger, then a drone would immediately fly in and destroy them.”
Reports of the appalling state of the Kremlin’s mobilized forces come after Moscow propagandists encouraged citizens to die horrible deaths for Putin rather than countenance war defeat.
I’ve got news for them.
That’s been done before.
I'LL take the Court-Martial, sir!...................
RE: Pretend to Be Dead
This is a problem. What happens to them when the war is over?
I imagine just like all the Russians who fled Russia to avoid the mobilization, they wait until Putin is gone and more rational heads are in charge of Russia, and they seek asylum in other countries.
Cake please...
“… Another wife, “Ekaterina,” said her 27-year-old husband was similarly trained only in digging trenches.….”
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Come on, ‘REVEREND MOTHER’, you need to get to the front more often. Or at least view more online videos of the front. Military forces there (both Ukrainian and Russian) employ wheeled powered trench digging machinery to dig their trenches.
“… Another wife, “Ekaterina,” said her 27-year-old husband was similarly trained only in digging trenches.….”
Best not to put your words in other people’s mouths.
The true value of this Free Republic site for this re-evaluation process: providing the opportunity to evaluate evidence to find truth.
“your truth, my truth, and the real truth.”
The difference between objective and subjective truth is: version of the truth. The only truth which can be really trusted is objective truths, but these take work to find.
No aspersion cast.
The true value of this Free Republic site is to be constantly learning. This pursuit of knowledge is vital to know the line between what “we believe to be true” and “what is fundamentally true.”
The goal is to become an Independent Thinker.
So, try to consider many different views to determine which is based on truth and facts.
I have learned as much from people whose views are opposite mine. Not because the opposing view influenced or took control over my viewpoint, but instead these opposing views clarified and confirmed mine! :)
What a curious post from you - all I did was post a link to an L7 hit song.
My impression of your involvement at FR is that you are hopelessly one sided. That you have posted, of all things, a Daily Beast piece is confirmation. I don’t think you can tell the difference between US State/CIA stenography and independent reporting. So I don’t think I have much to learn from you.
I check in on your posts because I simply want to take the temperature of the room to see how many see the truth - that this is Biden’s war, caused by the most catastrophic series of misjudgments that Washington has ever made.
If the recent avalanche of Russia-is-defeated articles like this one are true, we should soon see Zelensky besieging Moscow.
No.
This is not a war. Ukraine is only defending its national borders. No one has interest in crossing over to Russia
No problem. Everyone responsible for their own viewpoints. :)
You may like this video journalism reports done by VICE NEWS 2014 to give a background. You cannot watch them all in one sitting. Each Russian Roulette Dispatch takes about 30 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw613M86o5o5zqF6WJR8zuC7Uwyv76h7R
Sorry, my comment #12 was not in response to you. LOL
I just ran into this on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbt4s73HT1Y
I’m not going to watch there. I followed this closely back in 2014 and earlier - the most obvious coups in the history of coups engineered by US State under Nuland and Biden. I commented then that this will be the trigger that historians will look to for the start of the new cold war. That Biden’s State flouted Minsk I and Minsk II and has continued along this path shows that realpolitik has been shuttled off as some sort of relic. It’s like they picked this fight with beer muscles.
“I’m not going to watch”
No problem. I thought you might appreciate as it show the development of the historic conflict ‘as it occurred’ with each dispatch. I do agree. Everything started much earlier. By 1991, the internal disintegration process of U.S.S.R. was completed.
By 1992, the 15 national republics that were occupied by U.S.S.R. had declared their freedom: Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.
*NOTE: Nuland and Biden cannot be at faulted for the collapse of the Soviet Union.
BA History, Emory Universty, Class of 1983. Much of my study focused on Russia, Communism and the structure of the USSR. I am quite comfortable with my understanding of this region without having to delve into Vice reports. As I have said, I followed this closely in 2014 and before.
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