As Vladimir Putin continues to reel from Ukraine forces repelling his attempt to seize the country, a former paratrooper has written a tell-all book about the chaotic state of the Russian military heading into the invasion. In his self-published memoir, ZOV, Pavel Filatiev paints a picture of a completely ill-prepared and ill-equipped Russian army that generally had no idea what was happening during the attack.
The former paratrooper, who’s currently seeking asylum in France, wrote that he didn’t even know his platoon was invading Ukraine until he woke up to shells being fired. He described Russian forces carrying “rusty guns” and uniforms that didn’t even fit as they struggled to survive in a country that Filatiev said “we had no moral right to attack.”
Via The New York Times:
“I woke up at around 2 a.m.,” he writes. “The column was lined up somewhere in the wilderness, and everyone had turned off their engines and headlights,” he continues. “I couldn’t understand: Are we firing at advancing Ukrainians? Or maybe at NATO? Or are we attacking? Who is this hellish shelling aimed at?”
Later, he characterizes the Russian Army as lacking basic supplies. During a military operation in occupied Kherson in March, he writes, desperate Russian soldiers raided buildings looking for food, water, showers, and a place to sleep, and looted everything they could find of value, including computers and clothing.
Despite exposing the conditions of Putin’s “terrible war,” Filatiev is facing criticism for the book from anti-Russian and Ukraine sources because of his participation in the initial attack. Ukrainian critics have called him “an unreliable narrator and complicit in the violence,” while Russian opposition activist Ivan Zhdanov says the former paratrooper “has blood on his hands.”
(Via The New York Times)