It only took a few hours after Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin praised packing As a resounding success on Friday, a torrent of humiliating reports emerged suggesting that the war effort was more successful in turning the country against him than defeating him. Legendary Nazis in Ukraine.
Perhaps the startling contrast came with the Russian president’s bragging claims in Kazan, where dozens of conscripted soldiers were caught on video late Friday berating the military leadership outside a rally point for newly mobilized.
The angry crowd complained of a lack of water, food and “rusty” guns from the 1970s that one soldier said were “too dangerous” to use, according to local outlets. Amazingly, the troops were not subdued by a military officer who threatened to call in the riot police.
“What kind of riot police are trying to intimidate us? One of the protesting soldiers shouted.
The video showed that the officer was forced to retreat while a crowd of rioters chanted “despicable”.
By Saturday, local authorities said the issues indicated by the troops had been “resolved,” according to Tatar-Infor. But anger continued to erupt in other places, including in Voronezh, where relatives of recruited soldiers gathered outside the local prosecutor’s office to videotape the governor begging him to rescue the new troops from their command.
“On the first day they laid [the draftees] On the front line [in Luhansk]. A family member said in video It is shared by the independent Verstka outlet.
She said that within 40 minutes of being dumped on the battlefield, the leadership failed to return, the bombing began, and “the battles continued for three days.”
She said, “They didn’t sleep, they didn’t eat, they were in line for three days and they didn’t run away other than the order.”
They tell us over the phone that our sons are alive and well, and even that they are doing their military duty. How the hell are they alive and well when they were all killed there? ‘ Another soldier’s mother said to Verstka.
More than 500 soldiers in that battalion were later killed after the command left them, according to one of the surviving soldiers who spoke to the enforcer.
Alexey Agafonov Tell His Verstka battalion initially included 570 men – but only 29 were able to get out completely and 12 more were wounded after heavy fighting outside of Russian-occupied Makeivka. Another soldier who survived, Nikolai Voronin, confirmed the heavy losses.
“There were a lot of dead people, they were lying everywhere… Their arms and legs were torn,” Voronin said, adding that troops were ordered to dig trenches before all hell broke out and many of them ended up “almost digging their own graves.”
“When it all started, the officers immediately fled,” said Agafonov.
“They show on TV that everything is beautiful, but in fact, here in the Luhansk region, they specifically threw the crowded troops onto the front line, and when we left there, without seeing any officers, we came back and saw that in the third row they are only contractors and volunteers, and conscripts In the foreground
Putin, at a ceremony in Red Square on Friday, attempted to paint a very different picture of his mobilization efforts, boasting that thousands of men had chosen to join as volunteers, resulting in a total of 318,000 new soldiers, 49,000 of whom he said. They were already “doing their duty” in the military ranks.
“The number of volunteers will not decrease,” he said, in statements reported. RIA Novosti.
“It’s too many people [mobilized]. Families, mothers, fathers, children, wives … Of course, the state does everything to support them, ” He said.
He went on to invoke the famous Russian slogan “we do not leave behind”, claiming that the phrase “are not empty words” but “how everything happens in reality.”
The most urgent reprimand for this claim came a few hours after a man identified by Ukrainian intelligence as a soldier from the 752nd Motorized Rifle Regiment of the Russian Guard based in occupied Donetsk – who said troops there were literally ordered to leave their troops behind so the government could avoid paying the promised to their families.
The acceptance came in what the Ukrainian authorities described as Intercepted phone conversation Between a Russian soldier and someone back home.
“They won’t let the 200s be collected,” said the alleged soldier, using Russian military jargon for the battle dead. “No one, no case. Can [they will think the person killed] They were caught and could withhold money from relatives and not pay the money. Do you understand the idea? “
When asked if he himself had seen the abandoned corpses, he said: “Of course.”
“They lie all over the place and we cannot gather them,” he told his stunned interlocutor who asked in disbelief whether the military command treats only conscripts this way.
“It’s that way with everyone across the board,” he said.
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