He had helped oversee fighting in eastern Ukraine. CNN's Frederik Pleitgen reports on the conflict in Ukraine as Russian President Vladimir Putin touts success, yet some of his soldiers refuse to fight. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine. Although Sergey does not want to return to the front line, he does want to complete his outstanding military service in Russia to avoid any unforeseen consequences. CNN in Russia 10 videos. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, When disinfo specialists lie, Gray Ladys DeSantis frustration and other commentary, Putins former spin doctor-turned-critic dead, Ukraines northeastern front could decide new battle lines, Biden needs to step up military aid for Ukraine fast. The soldier's testimony said war-weary soldiers were urged by superiors to return to the fight. In October, a new general was appointed to lead Russia's offensive. This story has been shared 102,045 times. Then I started getting messages from him asking what would happen if he refused to fight.". RUSSIAN soldiers are suffering from low morale with some reportedly refusing to fight the war in Ukraine, according to a member of an elite Russian army unit on the ground. Belarus allowed Russia to stage part of the invasion from its . In all, 78 soldiers including Kaminsky openly challenged his orders, and demanded to be either sent home or reassigned, he said. "I think that [so many of] our guys died largely because of this. "Another reason is the foul way they're being treated. One consequence of the Kremlin refusing to declare war on Kyiv - the regime insists that its invasion is a "special military operation", a distinct legal status - is that its options for forcing servicemen to the front are more limited. They said no remains had been found. This is not our war. Russian troops release video as they say they will not fight. In Kononov's case, court documents say that he pleaded guilty to evading military service and that he testified he wanted to take a temporary break from fighting in Ukraine. Im supposed to be ready for any situation; this war, this special operation, one soldier wrote. In the southern Russian town of Budyonnovsk, on the home base for the 205th Cossack Motorized Rifle Brigade, commanders have erected a wall of shame with the names, ranks, and photographs of some 300 soldiers who have disobeyed orders in the Ukraine war. Russian soldier Ilya Kaminsky says rank-and-file troops have "absolutely no trust" in their higher command. (Reuters Photo) Russian soldiers fighting the war in Ukraine are in disarray and crying as they are asked to "fire at . He said the "Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most massive violations of human rights" being witnessed in the world today. In Buryatia, where the 11th Brigade is based, dozens of personnel have sought legal assistance from local activists, seeking to break their contracts and get out of service in Ukraine, for various reasons. It's absurd. 'I'd rather go to jail than fight in Ukraine', Surgeons operate on baby in Kyiv blackout, Station master arrested after dozens killed in Greece train crash, Covid origin likely China lab incident - FBI chief, Ukraine war casts shadow over India's G20 ambitions, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip, India anti-corruption crusader fighting to clear his name, Record numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story. But the soldier later discussed with his father what would happen if he refused to fight. Critics have said many mobilised men hardly had any battlefield experience and have received little training before being sent to the front. We didn't leave anyone in the rear, so if someone decided to come in from behind and hit us there was no protection. Pointing to Russias military laws, Benyash said it would be more difficult for soldiers to refuse to fight if Russia were to declare a full-scale war. Russian resistance is growing against Putin's war. "As an officer he understood that if they went ahead, they wouldn't get out alive. A group of Russian soldiers are suing the army after they were fired for refusing to fight in Ukraine. More than 550,000 soldiers from Putin's failing army have been killed or injured so badly in Ukraine that they are no longer able to fight, according to Minusrus. Soldiers like Sergey - reluctant to return to the front line - are not unusual, according to Ruslan Leviev, the editor of Conflict Intelligence Team, a media project investigating the experiences of the Russian military in Ukraine through confidential interviews and open source material. Russian rights activists say hundreds, possibly thousands of troops are balking at orders to deploy, to keep fighting, or to remain on the battlefield without rotating out or home. "We were like blind kittens. But even before that, there are many reports from our intelligence officers, who work quite successfully, about what is going at the enemy both in the rear and on the front line there are very frequent refusals to participate in hostilities., Read also: Russians pushing for breakthrough near Vuhledar, but unlikely to succeed, says UK intelligence. Their identities have been protected by the BBC. Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Finance chiefs at a Group of 20 conference in India this weekend issued a joint statement condemning Moscow for its war in Ukraine, with only China and Russia declining to sign. Born in Russia, he graduated from St. Petersburg State University and also received film and video production training at Bard College in New York. Artillery sentry duty? A Russian military unit deployed in Ukraine's south has refused to fight over a lack of vital supplies such as water, Ukraine said Sunday. Ukrainian . Newsweek was unable to independently verify those claims but reached out to Russia's foreign ministry for comment. In another incident, Sergey says he had to overtake comrades trapped inside a burning vehicle in front of him. R ussian troops have destroyed a concrete dam built in Ukraine's Kherson Region in 2014 to cut off water to Crimea, the RIA news agency quoted the governor of Russian-annexed Crimea Sergei . They began to stir and offer up some alternatives when people started specifically saying no, he said. When his son was sent to fight in Ukraine, Sergei begged him not to go. TASS said the soldier expressed his dissatisfaction with the training of mobilised servicemen outside Moscow. It wouldn't cost much to equip us. The world mourned a year of death and conflict this week as Friday February 24 marked the first anniversary of Vladimir Putin's order for his aggressive Russian Armed Forces to invade Ukraine.. 17 Russian soldiers were reportedly detained, Russian military unit deployed in the south would not figh, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. He and several others who'd decided to refuse had their guns taken off them and were put under armed guard.". A Russian court sentenced Marsel Kandarov to five years in prison for refusing to take part in the special military operation. This is one of many reported incidents where Russian soldiers have been accused of refusing to take up arms in Ukraine. Argument | Michael Walzer. A similar account to Dmitris was given to the BBCs Russian service by Sergey Bokov, a 23-year-old soldier who at the end of April decided to leave the army after fighting in Ukraine. Another soldier from the 205th Brigade also said commanders gave no preparation to soldiers before the war, and when the units deployed, they were told they were going on exercises. I thought a long time about it and came to the decision. There have been an estimated 140 soldiers put behind bars in eastern Ukraine, with some allegedly guarded by pro-Moscow mercenaries in a military base surrounded by land mines, the Guardian reported. Troops from the Russian so-called Cossack Detachment are refusing to take part in offensive operations due to Russian forces heavy losses near Vuhledar in Donetsk Oblast. They would be looking at time in prison.. appreciated. Paratroopers from the 11th Separate Air Assault Brigade, based outside Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Buryatia region in eastern Siberia, arrived in Ukraines Kherson region on February 24, shortly after Russias invasion began. For many Russian soldiers, the war in Ukraine is one they don't want to fight. For four and a half months, Corporal Ilya Kaminsky and his fellow soldiers from the 11th Separate Air Assault Brigade have waged war as part of the grinding Russian military offensive that has slowly pushed Ukrainian troops back in eastern Ukraine. When the soldiers of an elite Russian army brigade were told in early April to prepare for a second deployment to Ukraine, fear broke out among the ranks. A Russian court sentenced a 24-year-old professional soldier to five years in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, officials have said. Rumours abound of some Russian soldiers defying orders and refusing to cross into Ukraine to fight. I have served for five years in the army. We arent officially in a state of war, so they could not force me to go.. That is not to say that prosecutions are not being attempted. The Ukrainian military on Friday reported significant fighting near Ivankiv, about 40 miles north west of Kyiv, as Russian forces apparently tried to advance on the capital from the north. Now, at least four want their superiors punished for the seemingly illegal arrests, according to the newspaper. ", Russian mum's fight to save sons from Putin's war, Mariupol: 80 days that left a flourishing city in ruins, Pinned down by Russian fire in key frontline village. Among them were 12 national guardsmen from Russias southern city of Krasnodar who were fired after refusing to go to Ukraine. Hundreds were discharged after refusing to take part in the invasion, the Guardian previously reported. But they eventually calmed down because there wasnt much they could do, he said. 2023 BBC. "I can see that the war continues, it is not going away," he told the BBC. Vladimir Putins forces launched an invasion of Ukraine in February but never formally declared war, meaning soldiers can be fired but shouldnt be jailed, an attorney who has represented reluctant soldiers told the newspaper. Ukrainians have been asked to avoid going near windows or on balconies and be . "He said it was my choice. An anonymous specialist from a coalition of lawyers and experts from Russian human rights organizations told independent Russian news outlet MediaZona that Kononov's punishment in the form of a one-year restriction in military service does not imply early dismissal and is instead "something like corrective labor for military personnel.". The Insider. Russian paratroopers. All his bravado has gone. All asked that their names be withheld for fear of further punishment or retaliation by commanders. A Russian fleet was said to be preparing to shell port city Odessa and land troops. I told him that he was a zombie. My contract ends in June. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 2023 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hundreds of Russian soldiers have refused to fight or fled their posts since the war in Ukraine began, according to report published Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal. In July, the father of a Russian soldier told The Insider that troops were being detained or moved to a detention center in the occupied Luhansk region if they attempted to leave their posts. Along with eight others, Dmitri told his commanders that he refused to rejoin the invasion. Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, said the authorities may be worried that a general mobilisation would antagonise large sections of the population that support the special operation. He bombarded military officials, prosecutors and investigators with appeals for help. We drove around it and on, firing as we went. 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Before joining Current Times Moscow bureau in 2019, Rozhanskiy worked for the independent Russian television channel TV Rain. Did you encounter any technical issues? They'd been ordered to advance, but no one knew what lay ahead. "But he said he was going. But you cannot force people to fight.". The beach, just north of Odessa in southern Ukraine, was defended with mines and anti-tank hedgehogs. DeSantis won't say he's running. Im warning you, this is a final offer, he is heard telling the soldiers. He told me his face was covered in blood," the father said while speaking to the outlet. President Vladimir Putin had on September 21 ordered a mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of Russians to fight in Ukraine, sparking protests and an exodus of eligible men from the country. Many of the units that are supposed to train conscripts are fighting themselves, Lee said. Some large government-run companies have received letters urging them to sign up their staff for the army. "He told me he had refused to lead his men to a certain death," Oxana tells me. A senior US defense official said Russian volunteers are refusing to go into . A Russian soldier who refused to continue fighting in Ukraine, he was beaten until his face was . 'I'm Warning You, This Is A Final Offer' Soldiers with the 127th Regiment of the 1st Army Corps rioted, according to the operational command. In . Three days of duty? As Russia has faced a surprisingly effective resistance from Ukraine, there have been reports of low soldier morale and chaos among the commanding ranks. Ilya Kononov, a contract soldier from the city of Pskov in western Russia, was charged with "unauthorized . He heard of Russian servicemen so inexperienced that they "did not know how to shoot and couldn't tell one end of a mortar from another". Ukrainian service members are seen at the site of fighting with a Russian raiding group in Kyiv on the morning of February 26, 2022, according to Ukrainian service personnel at the scene. They were furious. Some Russian soldiers and even whole units are "refusing to fight" in Ukraine, top UK security officials reported today. A Russian soldier who refused to continue fighting in Ukraine, he was beaten until his face was covered in blood, his father has claimed. Brigade has suffered "extremely high casualties" while fighting in Ukraine. News/Politics 2022-12-22T11:35:49.577Z. He is now home in Russia, having taken legal advice to avoid being sent back to the front line. At the beginning of April, Sergey was sent back over the border to a camp on the Russian side. The Institute for the Study of War said on 14 February that the deployment of conscripted servicemen by Russian troops is unlikely to create sufficient offensive potential for a large-scale and rapid mechanised offensive. April 7, 2022. During wartime, rules are totally different. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. Russians across the country rallied against the orderbut police have attempted to disperse anti-war protests as they detained hundreds, including some children. ET Saturday: A curfew in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, has been extended from 5 pm until 8 am every day At least 198 Ukrainians, including three children, have been . Almost all his comrades were under the age of 25. Dmitris refusal to fight highlights some of the military difficulties the Russian army has faced as a result of the Kremlins political decision not to formally declare war on Ukraine preferring instead to describe the invasion, which will soon reach its fourth month, as a special military operation. A Russian soldier who refused to fight in the war in Ukraine was allegedly beaten and locked up by his own comrades, according to a report. 1 min read. VideoRecord numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story. He told me his face was covered in blood. But you have until 6 p.m. today. But, he had been sufficiently worried about his unit's reaction to his refusal that he decided to seek legal advice. The soldier, not wanting to take part in a special military operation, did not report for duty in May 2022, said the press service on Thursday for courts in the region of Bashkortostan in the southern Urals. A video of the incident that circulated online showed the soldier complaining of poor training, using obscenities, and calling the drills an imitation. He believed it was right. Commanders try to threaten their soldiers with prison time if they dissent, but we tell the soldiers that they can simply say no, Benyash said, adding that he was not aware of any criminal cases against soldiers who refused to fight. If no ones willing to take the offers from the brigade commanders, I wont detain you. There is absolutely no trust in the authorities and the higher command, from the very first word, Kaminsky, 20, told Current Time in a phone interview on July 17, recorded from an undisclosed location in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine. In another incident where Russian soldiers have been accused of refusing to fight in Ukraine, the country's Operational Command South said Sunday in a Facebook post that a Russian military unit deployed in the south would not fight because of a lack of vital supplies such as water. Produced by Will Vernon. ", "My first thoughts were 'Is this really happening to me?'". Albert Sakhibgareev was sent near the Ukrainian border in early February for "training exercises," the . Alexander Avilov / Moskva News Agency. I didnt think I would quit, but it happened because of my wifes difficult pregnancy, when I asked for a delay until after she gave birth, a third soldier told Current Time in a VK message.