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Wounded mothers of Russian soldiers say sons who refuse to fight are being held in torture pits


Maksim Kochetkov is being held in a penal colony 6,000 miles from his home on an island near Japan – one of a growing Russian army, prisoner of a war they don’t want to fight .

The 20-year-old is being punished for defying Vladimir Putin’s orders to attack Ukraine – like thousands of other Russian soldiers, often recruited from remote and poorer parts of Russia.

His circumstances underscore claims by US defense officials last week that there are ‘increasing signs of discipline and morale problems in the Russian military’.

Russian soldier Maksim Kochetkov, 20, pictured before he was detained in a penal colony 6,000 miles from home after refusing to follow Vladimir Putin's orders to attack Ukraine

Russian soldier Maksim Kochetkov, 20, pictured before he was detained in a penal colony 6,000 miles from home after refusing to follow Vladimir Putin's orders to attack Ukraine

Russian soldier Maksim Kochetkov, 20, pictured before he was detained in a penal colony 6,000 miles from home after refusing to follow Vladimir Putin’s orders to attack Ukraine

This was confirmed by Russian media reports – including one tracing 1,793 soldiers like Maksim who refused to fight.

It discovered many people were being held by Kremlin-linked mercenaries in crammed basements and ‘torture pits’ in Luhansk, an area that broke away from Ukraine in 2014 after being captured by forces. Separatist pro-Moscow occupation.

Russian officials, struggling to replenish the front five months after their invasion, try to bully those who refuse to tear up their resignations and return to the front lines.

Verstka, an independent Russian news agency, found at least 234 men being held in a detention center in the town of Bryanka.

One man said his son had been locked in the basement for two weeks with 33 other people. One woman said her son was rounded up on July 12 and locked underground without food, water or electricity.

Another father talked about the ‘torture pit’. Russia’s military law allows soldiers to refuse to fight – but human rights activists say commanders facing a shortage of reinforcements often ignore their requests or try to intimidate them into staying. for agreeing to let them return home.

Refusenik soldiers are being held in dark, crammed basements and 'torture pits' in Luhansk

Refusenik soldiers are being held in dark, crammed basements and 'torture pits' in Luhansk

Refusenik soldiers are being held in dark, crammed basements and ‘torture pits’ in Luhansk

One soldier, among the 200 men who filed a non-combat petition, said some had already made it home, but many others were either taken into Bryanka’s basements or forced back to the front lines.

“Maybe I’ll be able to leave without sitting in the pit,” he said. Such garbage is causing the Kremlin a headache as Putin struggles to replenish depleted and heavily damaged military units along a 300-mile front line stretching from near Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine. to Kherson – now facing a counterattack led by Kyiv – to the south.

Phillips O’Brien, Professor of Strategic Studies at St. Andrews University.

‘If they don’t try to mobilize, the conflict between the way they fight and their needs for soldiers will eventually cause a big problem for them.’

Russian officials, struggling to replenish the front five months after their invasion, try to bully those who refuse to tear up their resignations and return to the front lines.

Russian officials, struggling to replenish the front five months after their invasion, try to bully those who refuse to tear up their resignations and return to the front lines.

Russian officials, struggling to replenish the front five months after their invasion, try to bully those who refuse to tear up their resignations and return to the front lines.

According to American intelligence, more than 75,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in the five-month war – roughly commensurate with the size of the British Army – and foiled their advance in the western region. East Donbas.

At the end of March, Russia acknowledged 1,351 deaths, but has since kept quiet about the casualty rate – although many of them deaths have been confirmed by other sources coming from other regions. poorer part of the country and are recruited from ethnic minorities.

MI6 director Richard Moore last week said the Kremlin would have “increasing difficulty finding manpower and material resources over the next few weeks” and that Russia “is about to run out of strength”.

He added that Putin’s soldiers are not ‘middle-class kids’ from Moscow: ‘These are poor children from the Russian countryside, they come from blue-collar towns in Siberia, no proportionate to the ethnic minorities – they are fodder’.

Artyom Gorshenin was recruited from Abkhazia, an occupied part of Georgia, and with his engineering unit crossed the border into Ukraine on the first day of the invasion.

Since April, the 22-year-old has asked to be released from military service. 81 other soldiers in his unit sent similar letters but were ignored.

His mother Fatima said: “These people waited and then together they surrendered their weapons and left the unit. They were informed that they would be sent back to Abkhazia.

Instead, 120 soldiers were brought to the detention center in Bryanka, divided into groups of 20, and locked in basements guarded by mercenaries, believed to be from the sinister Wagner group (a militia group). privately linked to the Kremlin).

Fatima lost contact with her son earlier this month. Many contracted soldiers were told before the invasion that they were training near the border – only to find themselves in a barbaric war against a wealthy nation fighting for its existence. and supplied with increasingly sophisticated Western weapons.

Reports of some Russians refusing to fight began to appear within weeks. In March, 300 men from a unit stationed in Dagestan laid down their weapons and left Ukraine.

Another 150 people from a tank battalion stationed in Siberia quit their jobs in June. The mothers of the men who returned in March say their sons, not being provided with enough food or uniforms, returned with limbs froze and had to ‘cut off the charred flesh’ on their bodies.

Sergey Bokov, 23, abandoned the army a month after the war after dismayed by their lack of equipment.

“Our commanders didn’t even argue with us because we weren’t the first to leave,” he told BBC’s Russian Service.

Complaints about inadequate supplies, low morale and poor planning surfaced in alleged phone calls between Russian soldiers and their families that were intercepted and split up by Ukrainian security services. shall.

Kyiv has exploited this low morale – along with rising anger over the atrocities – to integrate the Free Russia Corps, founded by anti-Putin dissidents, into the army. Its armed forces, which defense officials announced in April were made up of more than 100 recruits.

Now, families of Russian soldiers are using social media and messaging groups to share information as they search for missing sons and husbands – a move that is sure to alarm Mr. Putin. , by mothers who succeeded in stirring up opposition against previous wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

According to US intelligence, more than 75,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded

According to US intelligence, more than 75,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded

According to US intelligence, more than 75,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded

One soldier’s father said his son was promised a three-month vacation and a chance to return home – but instead, the young soldier was detained for more than a month after asking to leave.

Such arrestees were held in terrible conditions in ‘some kind of pit’ with ‘torture and the like’, he said.

They are then accused of cowardice and betrayal of their homeland during threatening discussions with a psychologist.

Even so, his son and the other soldiers held in Bryanka refused to return to the front lines.

“They no longer want to be preoccupied with the blood of their friends and officers,” the man said.



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