Gregory's Server2/ Govorit NeMoskva tells the story of Alexander, a 46-year-old who was the chief engineer of a large construction company. When mobilisation was announced in September 2022, he believed that he would be protected by his company. He soon found this was not the case.
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4/ "I wasn't the only one who was such a sucker - there were about 30 percent of people like me: aged 38 to 45, with families, so to speak, from the middle class. From all over Russia, younger people were being called up. We tried to fight: we contacted the prosecutor's office, filed lawsuits, challenging the decision to mobilise. But in response we received evasive formal replies, and complaints were kicked around from one authority to another." 5/ He received minimal combat training, going to "a shooting range to shoot rusty cartridges from unusable weapons". In November 2022, he was sent to Svatove in the occupied Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine. 6/ "They dumped us in the forest: it was late autumn, freezing rain with snow was falling, and we had no tents, no entrenching tools, not even basic axes and saws to at least chop some sticks in the forest and make shacks. On the third day we ran out of food and water. And they began to slowly break up the battalion: we had managed to become friends over the month, and there was discontent that we were being used like some sort of cattle — so they began to throw us into battle in groups. 7/ "The first time they took away 65 people, three days later only 14 people came back alive, the second time they took away the whole company, 120 people - 10 of them were left, I think. People were just taken away in lorries at night and dropped off in forest belts. No one gave them any task, they started to be shelled - there was panic, they ran away and, of course, all of them were killed almost immediately." 8/ The men saw little of the career officers who commanded them but stayed well behind the front lines out of harm's way. The junior officers at Alexander's headquarters were all mobilised men. "They were more or less able to maintain discipline in normal ways, not army ways, because they worked as civilian managers. And the career officers... Cowardly, petty, corrupt." 9/ Alexander says as a person of religious, pacifist beliefs, he consistently sought to avoid fighting. He deserted from the army after seeing Russian helicopters mowing down soldiers fleeing from the front line. "I had no intention of taking part in military actions from the very beginning, and when I saw with my own eyes how those who were fleeing the battlefield were shot from helicopters [I deserted]." 10/ He was sent to the infamous Russian detention centre in Zaitseve in the northern part of the Luhansk region, where the local House of Culture has been turned into a torture facility for 'rehabilitating' soldiers who refuse to fight (see thread below). 11/ "I reached the border, but the border guards caught me and took me to the famous Zaitseve — I spent two weeks in a basement there. The basement was set up like this: it was divided into two parts. In one part were those who had done something serious — for example, shot someone while drunk, or just convinced refusers. They were beaten there. I was sitting in the other, “normal” part — there were just bare boards, they fed us twice a day, and didn’t let us smoke." 12/ "And zero information about what was happening. They didn’t touch us, but the screams from the other half were so loud that it was impossible to sleep. Then they told us to go there and clean up: wash off the blood and all that." After being sent back to the front line, Alexander realised that he could not declare himself a pacifist. Otherwise, "they would have put me in a pit or a basement in Zaitseve, and if I had not re-educated myself, they would have “zeroed” me, that is, shot me." 13/ Alexander has coronary heart disease and suffered a heart attack, a broken leg and a severe concussion, presumably during a Ukrainian attack. The head of his battalion's medical unit gave him papers to cross the border and go back to Russia legitimately. 14/ "I was evacuated unofficially, through the hospital, and our military unit was disbanded very soon - so as not to pay insurance payments for death or injury and not to spoil the statistics of the generals. Because after the disbandment of the unit, people are not listed anywhere in the documents, and the remnants of the survivors are assigned to another unit after a month or two." 15/ "For example, one of my comrades was wounded, and when applying for insurance payments, they told him: "How did you get wounded, being in a training unit deep in the rear?" By the New Year - 2023 - our battalion was worn out by half, in just a month. And by April, out of 550 people, there were about 150 left." 16/ Alexander was dropped off across the border in the Belgorod region but was left to seek his own medical treatment. He hired a taxi with several other wounded soldiers and went to Moscow. However, he decided not to return to the army and remained in hiding for a year. 17/ The army caught up with him in February 2024 and took him to an army prison. "There were always 30-40 people there. Once a week a plane would fly out and pick up those who agreed to go to war. They set conditions: either you go to a real prison or you go to war. But you still go to war after the trial. That is, they get you on a hook: you are put on trial, and at the trial you ask, please, I won’t do this anymore, I want to fight." 18/ "And the judge gives you a suspended sentence instead of a real one. And you can't get away from this hook, because if you escape, your suspended sentence will turn into a real one, plus they'll add on time for escaping. And you'll immediately go to jail for ten years. I spent three months there. They tried to put me on board three times and send me to war. I refused, demanded that they conduct a VVK [military medical commission]." 19/ "They conducted it, and it turned out that I was miraculously cured. They do it like this: if your index finger moves, you can pull the trigger - you're fit! I myself witnessed how they declared a man with a half-torn-off foot to be fit. Because there were huge losses, there weren't enough people." Alexander was determined not to go back to war and remained in prison. Instead, he and his fellow detainees were conscripted illegally to help build a holiday home for the regimental commander. 20/ He took the opportunity to escape. "I once overheard a major who was driving us to the construction site say: we'll do it anyway, so you'll go to war. I took this into account, because I was already mentally prepared to go to prison for a few years — but not to go to war, to kill people. Friends transferred money to me. I climbed over the fence — and went. Then I got on a plane and flew to St. Petersburg." |
3/ "It turns out they got me ripped off. I worked for companies whose owners were well-known and very rich people. They most likely received orders to [send employees] to war." Even though he had no previous military experience, he was immediately mobilised.