The morale of the Russian military is faltering, and badly. Their attempts to take control of Ukraine have failed so egregiously that the only options left for Vladimir Putin are starting a nuclear war that would end Russia as we know it or just throwing forcibly-conscripted citizens into the line of fire until he perished from cancer that is allegedly ravaging his body.
Neither outcome will see Putin leading a global superpower, and the Russian people are beginning to recognize that their leader’s fatalism doesn’t bode well for anyone.
That’s why citizens and soldiers alike have been speaking up against the regime and the invasion, with the latest message from the front lines of the conflict painting a grim picture of Moscow’s military machine.
For the second time in a month, men who say they are with a mobilized Russian unit deployed to Ukraine have complained about their treatment and commanders.
The men are from regiment 1439, which comes from Irkutsk in Siberia. A group from the same regiment issued a similar protest in January. It’s unclear whether the new video includes men involved in the previous complaint.
In the latest video, published Saturday, the group claimed they had been given “unlawful and criminal orders” from their command and sent to battle without “any support.”
“We are the mobilized from Irkutsk oblast (region), regiment 1439, who were sent to the (self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic) from the city of Novosibirsk on December 31, 2022,” said a hooded soldier reading a message and surrounded by other soldiers.
Their message was clear:
“We ask for help in dealing with the unlawful and criminal orders of our command … the soldiers of the territorial defense were made into assault units in a single day and were sent to assault the Avdiivka stronghold — without any support from artillery, communications, sappers, reconnaissance — to be slaughtered.”
And it gets worse:
“DPR commanders are firing machine guns and infantry fighting vehicles at our mobilized soldiers because (they) refuse to join the assault units. There is no point in appealing to the local military prosecutor’s office since they are in full collusion with the commanders … At this point, this battalion has been almost completely destroyed,” the hooded soldier continued.
As the video nears its end, the soldier says the unit is in a “desperate position” because the DPR “commanders do not care” about their lives.
Another video, also purportedly from men of the 1439th, circulated at the end of January.
In it, a group of soldiers said they were being threatened and fired at by their commanders for refusing to join the front line, and were being forced into combat without adequate support.
“Our command directly tells us that we are expendable. DPR commanders fire machine guns and BMPs at our mobilized soldiers because (they) refuse to join the assault units,” said a man dressed in a military uniform. The video was published on January 26.
