Gregory's Server11/ "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."
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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." |
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."