[Videos of Russian PoWs are being used for Ukraine propaganda, but
there is an authentic sense of regret among Russian servicemen ]
[[link removed]]

DEMORALISED RUSSIAN SOLDIERS TELL OF ANGER AT BEING ‘DUPED’ INTO
WAR  
[[link removed]]


 

Luke Harding
March 4, 2022
Guardian
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

_ Videos of Russian PoWs are being used for Ukraine propaganda, but
there is an authentic sense of regret among Russian servicemen _

Russian POWs captured by the Ukrainian Army, Photo: General Staff FB

 

Five Russian soldiers sit in a brick building. They are blindfolded:
the latest prisoners to be captured inside Ukraine
[[link removed]]. A Ukrainian voice
interrogates them. “Speak,” he says to the group’s Russian
officer. What message would he like to send to his soldiers and to
Russians back at home?

“Frankly speaking, they tricked us,” the officer replies,
referring to his military superiors sitting in Moscow. “Everything
we were told was a fake. I would tell my guys to leave Ukrainian
territory. We’ve got families and children. I think 90% of us would
agree to go home.”

The three-minute video was filmed under conditions of duress. The
soldiers are evidently scared. And yet there are numerous similar
interviews with Russian captives which have been circulating on
Ukrainian social media channels, expressing similar
sentiments.[Italian police seize yacht owned by Russia’s richest
man]‘90% of houses are damaged’: Russia’s Syria‑honed tactics
lay Ukraine towns to waste
[[link removed]]

Asked what he would tell his commanders, one said bluntly: “They are
faggots”. Another phrase frequently used is _oni obmanuli
nas:_ they duped us. Eight days after Vladimir Putin’s invasion it
is clear that a significant number of his servicemen are demoralised
and reluctant to fight. Some have given themselves up.

Others have abandoned their vehicles and have set off back towards the
Russian border on foot, lugging their weapons and kitbags, videos
suggest. These episodes do not mean that the Kremlin will fail in its
attempts to conquer Ukraine, as its tactics shift to brutal shelling
of civilians.

But low morale among invading troops might be one reason why
Russia’s blitzkrieg plan to overwhelm Ukraine appears not to have
progressed at the speed Putin would have wanted. The assumption in
Moscow was that the operation would be swift and successful. Soldiers
were given food and fuel supplies for only two or three days, the
videos suggest.

The Kremlin also appears to have had a totally fantastical idea of the
reception they would get. Several prisoners of war said they had been
assured Ukrainians would welcome them as liberators. Russian forces
were expecting flowers and cheers, not bullets and bombs, they said.

“Some of them thought they were on military exercises. They didn’t
anticipate resistance,” Artem Mazhulin, a 31-year-old English
teacher from Kharkiv said. “A lot are conscripts born in 2002 or
2003. We are talking about 19-year-old and 20-year-old boys.”

He added: “Since 2014 the Russian government has been brainwashing
its population
[[link removed]] with
propaganda. They try and make Russia believe Ukraine is not a real
country and say fascist monsters have captured it.”

Mazhulin said his uncle and aunt, Viktor and Valentina, had talked
with Russian soldiers when they rolled past their house in Kupiansk,
in north-east Ukraine, close to the border. The soldiers explained
they were looking for _Banderivtsi_, or followers of the second world
war Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera.

“My uncle said to them: ‘Where the fuck do you
see _Banderivtsi_?’ My aunt told them to get off her flowerbeds,”
Mazhulin recounted. “They called my uncle _Batya_ (Dad) and
chatted with him about pigeon breeding, his hobby. Then they drove off
on their tank.”

In a video address on Thursday Ukraine’s president Volodymyr
Zelenskiy 
[[link removed]]pressed
home the same message: that Putin has sent his invading forces into
Ukraine without an understandable mission. “They are demoralised.
They are doomed,” he said, telling enemy soldiers to “go home”.

Ukraine claims to have killed several thousand Russian troops. This
figure may be an exaggeration, but on Wednesday, however, even the
Kremlin admitted 498 of its servicemen had died, with 1,591 wounded.

Alex Kovzhun, a one-time adviser to Ukraine’s former prime minister
Yulia Tymoshenko, said Russian soldiers could be divided into two
sorts: “There are the young conscripts who are scared shitless. And
there are career guys who have fought in Syria and the Donbas.”

Kovzhun said the Russian general staff had thought the invasion would
be “easy peasy”, and a repeat of the operations to seize Crimea in
2014, or their recent deployment to Kazakhstan, which were largely
unopposed. Instead, Ukrainian civilians had stood in front of enemy
tanks, blocked armoured columns with their bare hands and had sung the
national anthem in front of twitchy Russian guards.

“They shout expletives in front of armed people. I’ve seen the
Russian faces. They are very uncomfortable because it’s not what
they expected. They were told Ukrainians were imprisoned by mythic
Nazis,” he added.

Nick Reynolds, a research analyst for land warfare at the defence and
security think tank the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said
the Ukrainian figure for killed enemy soldiers was likely to be a more
reliable than the Russian estimate, adding that the footage of
engagements involving Russian forces available online suggested the
toll the Kremlin was willing to admit to had already been exceeded.

Nevertheless, he added, there is little to show how the Ukrainian
authorities have arrived at their own total. The several thousand dead
tally could itself be a slight exaggeration, he said.

There is no doubt Ukraine is utilising the discomfort of captured
soldiers for propaganda purposes. Several videos show young
men calling their mothers back in Russia
[[link removed]],
who have no idea their sons are fighting in Ukraine. The mothers
typically break down. The Ukrainian authorities have opened a hotline
for worried Russian relatives, in another PR scoop.

Nonetheless, there is an authentic sense that many Russian servicemen
regret ever having come to Ukraine, a journey that has ended for some
in death or disillusionment. One interrogator asks a prisoner: “So,
what do you think, are you soldiers of the strong Russian army or
cannon fodder?”

“We are cannon fodder,” the PoW replies.

“Was it worth it?” the interrogator says, by way of follow-up.

“No,” the prisoner says.

_Luke Harding [[link removed]] is a
Guardian foreign correspondent. His book Shadow State
[[link removed]] is
published by Guardian Faber. Click here
[[link removed]] for
Luke's public key_

_Additional reporting by Kevin Rawlinson_

_All the day's headlines and highlights from the Guardian, direct to
you every morning in a Guardian newsletter.
[[link removed]]_ 

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web [[link removed]]
Submit via email
Frequently asked questions [[link removed]]
Manage subscription [[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org [[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]