'I'd rather sit down than go there again': a former Russian contract soldier told how he fought in Ukraine

Participants of the Anti-Propaganda project, which is coordinated by the organization Russian America for Democracy in Russia, interviewed a former Russian soldier who came to Ukraine at the beginning of the invasion. He told his misadventures to the publication Important Stories. Next - from the first person.

Photo: IStock

“Now we will just stand at the border, play with our muscles, they will crap, and we will go home”

It all started before the New Year. They said that there would be some exercises. And they sent half of the military equipment to be transported to the border with Ukraine, where they celebrated the New Year. But not where we came from later. After the New Year, we boarded a train and went to the Bryansk region, the city of Klintsy. They set up camp somewhere in the forest. And the first half, who left before the New Year, drove the equipment to us.

We were there until February 20th. And all this was presented as teachings. But I found a place where the Internet catches, and found out that the exercises are taking place on the territory of Belarus. We don't do anything, we just sit. Well, we do some household tasks, but it’s still not the same. We were actively overwritten about the teachings and that there would be no war.

Here is a literal quote from what we were told: “Now we will just stand at the border, play with our muscles, they will crap, and we will go home.” They also came from some Council of Veterans or something like that. They told us: “It was on this land that our great-grandfathers stopped the German offensive in 1941. Now you, with weapons in your hands, must repeat the feat. I thought, "God, shut up!" Then they handed over very “valuable” gifts: a notebook, a pen and a flashlight, so that, probably, in the dark, to write a suicide note, I don’t know.

Then we were told that we were moving to another place, literally half an hour away, and we had to hand over our phones. They said that there is very little to the border, there are American radar stations and they can find us. We all believed.

We arrived at another place, set up a tent, and lived there for a couple of days. But there is no connection: I can’t call home and even read the news, what’s going on in the world. On February 23, somewhere in the afternoon, we are told that (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky was given some kind of ultimatum, that supposedly if the situation in Donbas does not settle down in 24 hours, then we will go in. Now I think how I could buy into it, but we all bought it then.

And this is how I remember it now: on the 24th, at four in the morning, they woke me up. And I had to join the patrol - walk around the tent. We were told with a partner on patrol that the Polish special forces were stationed somewhere nearby, and we had to watch while the rest were sitting. And we were sent on patrol without bullets. The system is this: if we see someone, one does something there without cartridges, and the second one runs to wake the others. At about six in the morning I heard the tanks start up, and then I saw in the sky that the rockets were flying - there were such lights, it was still dark. I ran into the tent, picked everyone up. One officer had a push-button telephone, the most simple. We turned on the radio on it and listened to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin — he gave a speech there about the beginning of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

On the subject: 'It's just meat': Russian contract soldiers who fought in Ukraine told what they think about mobilization

We were told noodles that we were in the second echelon of the battalion tactical group and would enter Ukraine only if everyone who came before us was defeated. In general, the 24th was more or less quiet, calmly flowing, we were sent to fetch water. And there is such a place - only swamps. So we went with these canisters, I don’t understand where for water, we return, we look, and already we receive all the weapons and cartridges. We dropped everything, quickly put on bulletproof vests, put on helmets, loaded the magazines. We had four KamAZ trucks. And so it turns out that three leaves, and mine gets stuck. Until the evening we try to dig it out, they pull us out with a tank. And we go straight to the border, it's next to the monument "Three Sisters" (located at the junction of the borders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine). We got there around midnight and went to bed. On the 25th we do nothing at all. We just walk, dumb.

On the 26th at about 10 am we set off for Ukraine. For some reason, I actually fell asleep. When I woke up, I saw that the signs were already flashing in Ukrainian. We then arrived at some village, but there was no one there, it was empty at all. Behind the village was the headquarters where the generals sat. First, we stood for a day in one field, then moved to another, and stayed there for a month.

It was not far from the village of Yagodnoe near Chernigov. When Chernihiv was bombed, I saw flames through binoculars at night. We shot, I don’t know where, and, most likely, even hit, probably. Like they say, “target 105, tank” or there “self-propelled gun” (self-propelled artillery mount). Well, I don't know how much a tank or self-propelled gun really was there. Maybe it was a school or a hospital.

While I was in Ukraine, I really respected the Ukrainian servicemen: they fight very competently, they studied, prepared, they are great. For example, a single mortar worked on us all month, and we could not catch him, because he rode in gazelles. We have four guns - they have one mortar. They brought them so many wounded and dead to us. And we didn’t do anything to them, because we simply couldn’t calculate them.

Everything was somehow strange. There was not much supply. They gave us these rations - green ones in boxes. And we ate them all month: one for two or one person rations for two days. Water - one liter bottle for two per day. Nowhere to wash, nowhere to wash. There were no cigarettes, although I understand that this is not paramount, but they were needed there more than ever. It got to the point that we climbed over the destroyed buildings, looking for cigarette butts. Then I was already so stubborn that I made myself a pipe out of foil, the tea bags fell asleep and smoked. Well, how else to calm down?

Somehow, Tuvinians in armored vehicles "Tiger" went on a sortie to some village and then brought cigarettes, each was given a pack. But most of the shops were empty. They said that the locals swept away everything they could, leaving only alcohol. Therefore, we just had trucks with alcohol: vodka, wine, champagne, cognac. But I'm not that strong. The situation is such that it is impossible to relax. But the officers and ensigns drank a lot.

Drunk, they began to shoot into the air, make phone calls, like: “Masha, great! We are near Chernigov, we are beating fascists.” So they gave out their location, and the next day they shot at us: this is how the first dead and wounded appeared.

“I call my mother, the first news from her:“ And I pasted the letter Z on the car.

As we drove in, almost all of my colleagues were replaced. Just at the click of a finger, they immediately began: “Fascists, Bandera, Nazis, NATO, Azov.” I think I was the only one who didn't think so.

We had one boy with Ukrainian roots. He translated the news of the Ukrainian radio for us, when we listened to everything together from the push-button station. And even he changed his shoes at the moment. And he is a man with a higher education, and I liked talking to him.

And so he began: “The Nazis, Bandera are shooting at the Donbass. We’ll kill them all here now, save them all, and return home like heroes with an orchestra.” Then, I remember, he found a St. George ribbon in some house, so he was ready to give anything, so that I would give this ribbon to him. He tied it on his chest and walked happy.

Another military man even went to rallies when Alexei Navalny was free. He tried to hurry up and take a day off that day, think of something that he urgently needed to go home. As soon as we arrived in Ukraine: “Now we will cut these fascists, I am ready to kill.” I'm ashamed of these people, really. And that I was in the same boat with them.

At the border before the invasion, I asked a colleague who hid one phone to call my mother. Literally in 2020, she simply cursed Putin. February 24 - bam! "Egor, be strong, you're done, all hope is on you." Well, I think, okay, it's okay, I just caught a patriotic frenzy. Returned in April. I called my mother, the first news from her: “And I pasted the letter Z on the car.” I think: "Ugh, that's it - a person is missing." And now I can't talk to her at all. She will call me under the pretext of "how are you doing." Literally 5-10 minutes of a telephone conversation, and we move out to politics and quarrel. And so every time.

At the same time, my mother was glad when she found out that I had returned and would not go to the second run. Sobbed into the phone for 20 minutes. But he continues anyway: “Z, V, hooray!” The ideal citizen.

Even in Ukraine, I began to think: “Something like hell, we don’t release anyone here.” Moreover, like “we are liberating the Donbass”, but what the hell did we forget in Chernihiv then? I asked this question. We were presented in such a way that we play the role of a red herring. In general, another nonsense.

On the evening of March 11, we were sitting in a trench. We were not allowed to go to sleep, because all the sergeants were called to the commander for a meeting. After about 20 minutes, ours returns and says: “Now I will bring you political information. Today Zelensky signed a peace treaty with the Russian Federation. The war is over, but there is one small problem. The fact is that, you see, the Azov battalion, all these Nazi fascists, they decided to disobey their president. They seized the Kyiv arsenal with weapons and equipment. Now they are driving all these columns to Chernihiv, which is in a semicircle, in order to sort of repulse the “occupiers.” Moreover, it is not clear why they had to drive themselves, in fact, into a trap. But we came to the conclusion that “well, fascists, what to take from them - they are stupid. And now our task is that the infantry closes the ring completely, and we fire at the road in order to break this column. Then there is a cleansing of Chernigov from the Nazis, who, as was customary to say, are hiding behind the local civilians. And this will end the war. This news for a week somewhere was enough. What an enthusiasm! A little more, a little more, and that's it. But it turned out that "Azov" was not in Chernigov at all, but in Mariupol. But no one knew this. This is how they led us by the nose.

On March 31, at eight in the morning, I noticed that a lot of cars, tanks, armored personnel carriers were driving in the opposite direction from where they had been traveling a month ago. And they go and do not end. It happens that a tank passes by, some kind of bag falls out of it, they do not slow down, they go further. Or a truck is driving, it has a trailer behind it with wheels up, and it just drags it along the ground. They drove across the field, not along a country road, about 60 kilometers per hour. Natural escape. And we kind of had to cover this column. We begin to shoot, they also begin to shoot at us in response. During all this, this column still does not end. They are starting to shoot at us right next to us. We leave everything, run into the forest, while everything is quiet, we hook up guns and also dump into some other field. We spend the night there and in the morning we leave towards Russia.

After this "negative offensive" we slipped back to Klintsy. One KamAZ was packed with a generator, a lawn mower, a chainsaw, shovels - well, in general, all sorts of junk. In fact, the shovels were an amazing find. Ours are blunt, and the ones we found are pointed and very good at digging. I also brought something: a Ukrainian cap that was lying around in one building, a knitted sweater, I liked the pattern, a deck of playing cards, and I also found a sniper rifle pouch with four rounds.

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As soon as they returned, they got drunk and drank for about a week. And there is still Rambo: they began to discuss who fired how many shots, who was more accurate, who was faster. But I kind of don’t drink much, and most of these people were generally unpleasant to me even before the war. So I just sat on the phone, as they were returned to us. I finally went on the Internet to read what was happening there, and was stunned. There just reports about Bucha appeared. My jaw dropped a little. But it was not my unit there, maybe some scumbags. But here is the material about Yagodnoe, that civilians were kept in the basement there, these are already ours, whom I personally know, whom I greeted every day at work. I just can't believe my friends can do this.

When my colleague went to rallies, I thought he was a fool. And I turned out to be the fool. That is, before, in general, I didn’t care about politics. When I got out to Russia, and a friend of mine began to send me opposition media reports about the war in Ukraine, then my convictions finally crumbled. I also promised her that I would rather sit down than go there again.

We were actively threatened with a criminal offense when we just returned in April: like, that in just a day or two they would pass a law according to which refusal would be equated with treason and desertion. And our entire platoon refused to continue to participate in the war. Although they were determined to fight when the invasion of Ukraine began, two weeks of comfortable life with the Internet and electricity did their job. But in the end they finished off everyone, intimidated them with a criminal offense, and almost everyone changed their minds, except for me. I am one of those who remained unconvinced. I was also regularly asked: “Did you really decide that?” “Yes, I definitely won’t go there,” he answered. - Do what you want". I was still on patrol and missed a few people who just ran away on their own.

I was fired for non-compliance with the terms of the contract. Enough money was paid for participation in the war. But I did not receive moral satisfaction, as this is dirty money.

“This is not a liberation war, but an aggressive and imperialist war”

I met the news about the mobilization as cinematically as possible: I sat down to eat, leafed through the news on the Internet and a spoon fell out of my hands. I was just blown away. And then it dawned on me that I was, as it were, an ideal candidate - a professional military man and a participant in hostilities. Although, when I quit, they told me: “No, you have not been to Ukraine.” They didn't give me veteran status. In my personal file, I have written in pencil "did not participate in hostilities." Well, now they can quickly wipe it off.

I have neither the money nor the opportunity to leave the country. I do not know what to do. I just sit and wait. But I am determined as much as possible so as not to go back to fight. I'm afraid, because I already know what it is, but I still want to live. Well, for political reasons. I just hope that if you have to sit down for refusing to fight, then Putin will not live forever, sooner or later it will end, and we will be released.

In my opinion, we lost this war, and our "great" leader simply has too much pride to admit his own defeat. Well, he does not recognize and does not recognize, but he is already mobilizing civilians into this meat grinder. Here the Russians say that if there is a war, then I will go. Well, for example, if we were attacked and you need to protect your home, then yes, of course. And here it is not a liberation war, but an aggressive and imperialist war. Nobody needs it. And for some reason everyone tolerates it. I can't wrap my head around how this is possible.

When everyone was waiting for Putin's speech, I thought that if this weirdo announced mobilization, in any case such an Armageddon would begin! But nothing happened. Everything was hidden again. But these peaceful rallies - they are completely bespontovye. They will load you into the paddy wagon and give you another summons. Do I need it? And if there is already something capital, then yes, I'm ready to go.

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