For Russian soldiers sent to fight in Ukraine, the biggest threat might be the person fighting alongside you. The Daily Beast wrote about a disturbing report published on iStories, an independent media outlet, which claims there’s a rising trend of Russian soldiers being killed by their fellow servicemen — because at least one party is inebriated, soldiers are ill-equipped to properly handle their weapons, and/or the unit commanders simply aren’t paying attention.
According to The Daily Beast’s Allison Quinn, Ukrainian intelligence officials released audio that has been captured of Russian soldiers speaking with their family and loved ones back at home:
In audio released by Ukrainian intelligence on Tuesday and said to capture a Russian soldier’s phone conversation, a man identified only as Aleksei tells his mother the military just sent reinforcements. He explains that the reinforcements came because “20 people are gone.”
“Our tank hit hard: It fired twice and 20 guys, f**k. I’m telling you, what the f**k kind of command is this, scumbags. They’re f**king killing their own,” Aleksei, who described himself as a commander, said.
“I’m telling you, there are more losses from our own [guys],” than the Ukrainians, he said.
In another phone call, a soldier told his friend “It’s not a war, it’s a sh*t show. It’s complete bullsh*t. That’s it, the entire response from leadership: There are 300,000 of you, basically, we don’t give a f**k.”
IStories spoke with one soldier, Dmitry Panov, who said that he volunteered for military duty in the summer but refused to continue fighting after commanders kept killing their own men. “We are just meat,” Panov said. “They don’t want to know us, they present us as some kind of animals that are being led to the slaughter.”
Back in Russia, Putin has copped to the situation in Ukraine being “extremely complicated.” Though he’s pointing fingers at “saboteurs” and “spies.”
(Via The Daily Beast)