Thursday, March 28

“Putin is a fool.” Intercepted calls to Russian soldiers in Ukraine show criticism of the war


  • An exclusive from ‘The New York Times’ reveals deception, frustration and disenchantment among the troops

  • Soldiers acknowledge atrocities and looting and question Kremlin and military leadership

“Our offense has stalled. We are losing this war. “Half our regiment is gone.” “They gave us orders to kill everyone we saw”. “When I get home I’ll leave it. fuck the army”. “(Vladimir) Putin is a fool. He wants us to take kyiv, but there is no way we can do it.”

The five sentences were pronounced in calls to family, couples and friends in Russia Russian soldiers who in Marchweeks after the Kremlin began its invasion of Ukraine, were stationed in the area near Bucha, on the outskirts of kyiv. Were interceptedlike thousands of other telephone conversations, by the ukrainian government. And this Wednesday, after months of investigation, translation and certification of its authenticity, “The New York Times” has made the content public as part of a reportage that reveals the frustration and the disenchantment of the troops, who question decisions made by both the Russian president and military leaders and also recognize atrocities committed against civilians, as well as having carried out looting.

The ‘Times’ hides the name of the receivers and only offers the first names of the Russian soldiers, explaining that some of the things they said in calls with mobile phones that they were also not authorized to make could be punished with prison sentences in Russia if they were publicly expressed.

“These bastards didn’t tell us anything”

Russian soldiers already suffered in those first weeks of the invasion low morale and they complained, for example, of lack of equipment. They also claimed to have been deceived about the mission. “Nobody told us we were going to war, nothey warned you the day before”, Serguei told his mother, before whom he also expressed the opinion that “this war is the most stupid decision the government has ever made”. “They teased us like kids”, Nikita told a friend. “They told us we were going to train; These bastards didn’t tell us anything, ”Aleksei criticized when talking to his partner.

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In the conversations the soldiers were also interested in the Official version that was taking place in Russia and the they disarticulated. One named Aleksandr, for example, said: “Actually we cannot take kyiv, we only take villages”. And in a conversation with his girlfriend another named Sergei told him: “They want to fool people on TV saying that everything is fine, that it’s just a special operationbut it’s actually a fucking war”.

war crimes

The human costs of that conflict also appeared in the conversations, both talking about fallen Russian soldiers and civilian victims. And the calls dismantle the version repeated by the Kremlin that the Bucha massacre, where after the withdrawal they found more than 1,100 corpseswas staged to blame Russia and point to war crimes. In one, for example, soldier Sergei told his girlfriend that his commander had ordered the killing of three men who walked past his warehouse.

“We stopped them, undressed them and checked their clothes. We had to decide whether to let them go, but if we did they might reveal our position, so it was decided to shoot them in the forestsays the soldier. When the girlfriend asks if they were shot, he replies “of course”. And when she questions why they weren’t taken prisoner, he replies: “We should have fed them and we don’t have enough food for ourselves.”

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Soldier Sergei also says that before they arrived they were told that there were many civilians and they were ordered to “shoot everyone we saw”. “Because they can reveal positions. Looks like that’s what we’re going to do. Kill any passing civilian and drag them into the forest. Already made me a murderer“, keep going. “That’s why I don’t want to kill more people, especially the ones I have to look them in the eye.”

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Several of the soldiers speak openly on the calls of having looted houses and businesses. And the ‘Times’ has also verified that several of those who were intercepted made postal shipments to Russia days after the calls.


www.elperiodico.com

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