Newly mobilized Russian solders from Irkutsk record a desperate video appeal to Putin
Newly mobilized Russian soldiers from the Irkutsk region recorded a video message to Russian President Vladimir Putin. They said that they had been transferred under the command of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic. According to the soldiers, the DPR command sends them to the front lines, "to be slaughtered", and if they refuse to go, the commanders fire at them from machine guns. The video appeal of Irkutsk conscripts was published by the Telegram channel People of Baikal.
According to the servicemen, they were attached to the Slavic brigade of the self-proclaimed DPR, where they in one day "were broken into assault units" and sent to storm the Avdiivka fortified area without any support, artillery, communications, sappers, and reconnaissance.
"The command directly says that we are all expendable, and the only chance to return home is to get wounded," the mobilized said, adding that Donbas commanders fire at those who do not want to join the assault units from machine guns and IFVs.
The men gave the number of their regiment - 1439 and noted that the soldiers of the second battalion of the same regiment had already recorded a similar video message. According to the soldiers, now this battalion has been almost destroyed.
Soldiers said that they do not know the names and titles of their commanders. The commanders themselves are not at the front lines and do not know the real situation there. The regiment, according to the soldiers, have been suffering heavy losses and has been restaffed with new conscripts for the sixth time already.
Also, the solders believe that appeals to the local military prosecutor's office are meaningless, since it is "in collusion" with the command. Therefore, the men decided to turn to the Russian president as the last resort.
Such complaints from the Russian military are not uncommon. In mid-January, about 30 men in camouflage and with their faces covered introduced themselves as mobilized from the Yaroslavl region and said that during the fighting in Ukraine they had to retreat from their positions following the orders of their commanders, but now they are about to be charged for deserting their units. Also, the military accused the employees of the military enlistment offices of the Yaroslavl region of lying to them. During the conscription process, they were promised service in the local territorial defense units, but in the end, they were sent to the front line.
After the appeal to Putin, all the contacts with the soldiers from Yaroslavl stopped. According to a relative of one of the conscripts, after the video with the complaint appeared on the internet, riot police was sent in, and the military commission from the Luhansk region demanded that they return to the abandoned positions.