It is not a rebellion, but the alarm is serious and is finding more and more echo in the ranks of the army. In recent weeks, Russian soldiers sent to the Ukrainian front have confided their difficulties in videos addressed to the Kremlin and above all point out the negligence of their command, exposing their lives to the greatest dangers for no purpose. And the phenomenon intensifies.
The Institute for the Study of War, an American think tank that closely follows the conflict in Ukraine, has identified 17 such allegations posted on Telegram or by independent Russian media since early February. With a cry from the heart, like a slogan: “We are not cannon fodder.”
an identical diagram
If the videos are linked, they all observe a common pattern, posted here by TF1. Five to ten men – hooded – line up in front of the camera, while a spokesman identifies his unit, and the region of origin of the soldiers. Then come the precautions for use. On the one hand, we emphasize that we are not questioning the invasion itself. On the other, we focus on talking to Vladimir Putin on the forms.
Therefore, the protesting soldiers give him “very dear Vladimir Vladimirovitch”, or even the “highly respected commander-in-chief, Vladimir Putin”. So it’s finally time to air his grievances.
They denounce shortages of all kinds
And those expressed in a March 6 video by the 5th Motorized Brigade, made up of men from provinces as diverse as Kaliningrad (in the west of the country), Murmansk (in the far north) and Arkhangelsk (in the far east), represent overall ambiance good.
“We are not cannon fodder. We are ready to fight with dignity, not as cannon fodder, in frontal attacks,” launches the spokesperson, according to the WarTranslated Twitter account, which shared many of these recordings.
“We do not refuse to meet the objectives of the operation. We are ready to go, ”he specifies but:“ People are dying for nothing. They are sent in frontal attacks, in open fields in broad daylight. We are in the 21 century”. And in these conditions, there is no miracle, as the balance drawn up by the soldier shows: “During our first battle, six people died in a single trench”.
Then he develops the deficiencies faced by these soldiers who, obviously, lack everything:
“We have neither strategy nor tactics, and they send us to attack. There is no cooperation with the command, we lack ballistic support, we have no resources to monitor the front. There is a lack of armored personnel and artillery.”
“Our weapons are from the 1940s, they are worn out, and I am also talking about mortars and cannons. There is no aerial reconnaissance, mining tactics do not work. There are no written instructions for the fight,” she swipes again. .
bureaucratic aberration
The mood that reigns within an artillery regiment, coming from Serpukhov, and deployed at the end of December, is similar, as evidenced by the video posted on March 12. “Today we still have not received weapons and ammunition,” said his delegate.
For him, the problem is bureaucratic: “We are soldiers. We want to defend the ‘motherland’. But our rifles are in Boguchary. ‘He did not receive any instructions from the staff in Moscow.’
This did not stop the officers from sending them forward to hold a position against the Ukrainian soldiers. A desperate mission considering that these units now made up largely of recruits from the last mobilization, with little training, are far from up to the task.
“We are asking for our guys to come back because they don’t have the necessary experience or training,” the spokesperson said.
This is also a reminder of the obvious: asking an artillery company to attack is itself an aberration. “Dear Vladimir Vladimirovitch, we would be more useful as gunners since we are not trained for assault. Dear Vladimir Vladimirovitch, we ask you to fix the situation,” the messenger adds, sparing courtesy and firmness.
The feeling of having been cheated
The 255th Motorized Rifle Regiment, quoted here by The crossne se sent pas à sa place non plus: “Nous sommes des citoyens ordinaires. Nous ne sommes pas des militaires professionnels ni une unité d’assaut. meat.”
In fact, it is a recurring antiphon. These Russian soldiers feel that they have been deceived. Newly released from civilian life by their mobilization order, they thought they were bringing up the rear, or at least staying behind the front line. Result: they are in the heart of the fight.
The independent Russian news site jellyfish explains this apparent deception. Initially, most of the forces sent into the fire came from the breakaway regions of Donbass. Troops that had the double advantage of being hardened by years of civil war and of being especially motivated. But, of course, the harsh law of combat killed or disabled many of them, especially since the Kremlin didn’t care much for casualties. And the civilians who have replaced them, who have come from the four corners of Russia, do not have the same bite in their teeth, nor this familiarity with war, let alone this relationship with death.
“Previously, recruits from Donetsk or Luhansk were written off – now it’s the turn of the Russians. They cannot fight differently. And if the command does not fundamentally change its approach, which I doubt, Russian recruits will continue to die.” like this,” military expert Kirill Mikhailov told jellyfish.
In addition, the plaintiffs share another point in common. Very often they are enlisted in divisions belonging to the formerly separatist and now annexed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. And they are asking the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation to be attached to units more directly under the authority of the latter.
A claim heard at least: While “dearly beloved Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin” is silent for the time being, regional governors have said they intend to petition the ministry about it, or carry out inspection missions.
An effective process?
In any case, from the soldiers’ soviets of World War I, to the grievances directed at Moscow bypassing the hierarchy under communism, this way of ignoring their officers and their hierarchy in an attempt to sensitize the head of the country It’s almost a tradition in Russia.
For Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, director of the Russia center of the French Institute of International Relations, interviewed by the parisianit is not even necessary to go that far, or even stick to the military terrain.
“This type of collective complaint presented, before the war, victims of dishonest real estate developers or the arbitrariness of local power in terms of the environment,” he analyzes with the newspaper Ile-de-France, remarking: “C is a last cry In search of help, he rushes to the supreme authority, and goes public to be heard. Exasperated, the soldiers take out their cell phones.”
The specialist, however, doubts the effectiveness of the process, or rather considers that the trend is insufficient to influence the attitude of the State: “There were about fifteen videos in February, the number is important, but we did not take them into account. hundreds. Nor do we know of real riots.
Source: BFM TV
