Nearly 90 days after Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, Russian forces have apparently become so demoralized and desperate to stop that they have started deliberately injuring themselves.
Ukraine’s defense ministry’s main intelligence agency released audio on Saturday of what it said was an intercepted call revealing the new batshit trend.
A man identified as a Russian soldier in an airstrike brigade in Ukraine’s Kherson region can express his frustrations to his mother and explain why he wants to stop fighting.
“Why Should They” [the Ukrainians] throwing up? We are on their land,” the soldier tells his mother. “This will not end soon. What the hell do I need this for? At 20 years old… I’m not interested in Ukraine at all. I have to come back and resign,” he says.
His astonished mother asks why there are no Russian troops in Ukraine who are determined to continue the fight for the sake of “patriotism”, but the soldier, Nikita, makes fun of him.
“I had a commander… who shot himself in the leg trying to get out of here. And that was in the beginning! What’s there to talk about? He served in Chechnya.”
His horrified mother goes on to argue that someone has to “defend Russia” to prevent the West from attacking, echoing the Kremlin narrative that dominates state-controlled Russian news that Putin’s war was launched over a imminent NATO attack.
“They will just kill us all, it will be World War 4 and Russia will lose!” she explains.
“Well, then maybe Putin will change his mind… There are no people, there is no ammunition,” he said, adding that his own commander had sent letters to try to get his brigade out, but to no avail. .
He said less than 50 percent of his brigade was left.
“Our people just disappear on their own. Some of them disappeared without a trace, some were captured, some are hiding, some are already in Russia,” he said.
The tapped phone chat was not the only one to suggest that Russian troops are taking desperate measures to escape the war. In a similar recording released by Ukrainian intelligence on Friday, a woman identified as the wife of a Russian soldier urges him to “fall off a tank”.
“There is no way out,” she says. “Otherwise you’ll be there until September… They won’t trade you, because everyone refuses.”
“Well, clearly, what stupid bastard would come here?” he says.
His wife states that a “fall from a tank” is only one option. “You just don’t have to shoot yourself in the leg, because who knows how that would turn out. Or have someone hit you on the side,” she says, hurting his kidneys. ‘I don’t fucking know! Because you could go straight home from the hospital.”
The alleged soldier appears to be seriously considering the proposal, as he recalls how he and about 300 other troops took control of a village two days earlier when he says a “battalion commander’s fucker” ordered all the men to drop grenades into the cellars of local houses, without checking who got in first.
“It’s a good thing they didn’t throw the grenades, because when the boys went in, there were four small children there.”
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