In audio intercepts from the front lines in Ukraine, Russian soldiers speak in shorthand of 200s to mean dead, 300s to mean wounded. The urge to flee has become common enough that they also talk of 500s — people who refuse to fight.
As the war grinds into its second winter, a growing number of Russian soldiers want out, as suggested in secret recordings obtained by The Associated Press of Russian soldiers calling home from the battlefields of the Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions in Ukraine.
The calls offer a rare glimpse of the war as it looked through Russian eyes — a point of view that seldom makes its way into Western media, largely because Russia has made it a crime to speak honestly about the conflict in Ukraine. They also show clearly how the war has progressed, from the professional soldiers who initially powered Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion to men from all walks of life compelled to serve in grueling conditions.
“There’s no f------ ‘dying the death of the brave’ here,” one soldier told his brother from the front in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. “You just die like a f------ earthworm.”
We need to be careful extrapolating this to general trends, because the ones doing the intercepting (likely the SBU/Ukrainian intelligence) decide what to release. This is not a random sample.
I have no reason to doubt the intercepts are real, but I do wonder about the content of all the other intercepts that are not released.
no you’re right, i’m sure there are places where the Russian soldiers are having a great time and not dying like dogs
They must have a blast, otherwise, they would’ve done something about it, instead of just bitching. Everything points to the conclusion that they want to be there.
Yes, everyone wants to be somewhere other than prison or dead in a ditch
It’s so amusing to see comments from accounts that seem entirely oblivious to its own username. 🤦🏼♂️🖕🏽🤣
It’s a general enough trend that they needed to create a special code for the phenomenon.
I’m sure they had the code already, the fact that the US has “section 8” doesn’t mean they’re all going crazy.
You’re right, the other intercepts are probably just straight up crying.
I imagine most of the calls are pretty similar to these ones. I can’t imagine there’s much morale left for the Russians.
Seems like every generation has to learn the Old Lie again and again.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est
I can’t help but think most soldiers realize it’s a load of bullshit when they’re choking on their own blood.
Soldiers realize it well before then. The VFW is a club that hopes it withers away from lack of new members.
Thank you for sharing this. I don’t read much poetry, much less in German. But this kept me on the edge of my seat.
Jesus Christ. The first one was beautiful and terrible. This was just naked horror (though part of that was that I’m not a native German speaker, so phrases like “blood-shod” in the first poem might have flown over my head in the second one), but I think it might be more effective for it. I also like that it addresses the populace, more than the politicians/potential soldiers.
Interesting! It‘s the opposite with me, I am not a native English speaker, and I actually didn‘t understand blood-shod. They limp and have blood in their shoes? The pictures that came to my mind reminded me of the Borchert poem. It felt like the adequate reply. I love it for the explicit message: Sag Nein! The horror at its end I find just as horrifying as the Owen poem. Back to back, and we have snapshots of the horrors of WWI, WWII and WWIII.
Shod is basically an archaic form of “shoed,” so it’s soildiers who have worn through their boots and are walking just on blood.
I agree that they’re both incredibly moving and horrifying. I think “Sag Nein!” Reflects the perspective of the German postwar generation on communal guilt, whereas the other is more of an attack on politicians. It seems fitting, based on the wars involved, especially because they’re both calls to action, rather than simply condemnations.
Russia must be a wonderful place to wake up in the morning… what an amazingly joyful, wonderful place it must be… that must be why so many intelligent people have fled for the nearest border…
Russia, the land of earthworms
If this was obtained and released by Ukraine, it is a type of propaganda. It might be true, but it’s definitely designed to further erode the spirit of any Russian listener and bolster the Ukrainian side.
Here’s Vietnam propaganda trying to get US soldiers to give up: https://people.duke.edu/~ng46/collections/propaganda/vietnam-to-us/LEAFLET North Vietnam Whats in Washingtons War 1 600h.jpg
“It’s war, no one’s happy. If those same spies were in our camps…”
Lord Tywin Lannister
But seriously, yes, I’m sure they have low morale. But it’s frontline peer conflict. I’m sure the GRU has plenty of intercepted calls from Ukrainian conscripts saying and feeling very similarly.
Maybe that can’t be extrapolated across the board for the UA, but certainly enough for a similar propaganda/psyop release.
Unlikely. The Ukrainians are literally fighting for their homes and their lives. While I’m sure they’re sick of warfare, it doesn’t follow that their morale would at all be similar.
An army can have good overall morale, and still have frontline soldiers complaining on the phone, especially conscripts.
That’s my point. Selective release of intercepted calls of soldiers complaining, or otherwise expressing negative feelings isn’t unique to armies with poor morale.
The Ukrainians are still humans. They aren’t zealots, or robots. Humans have complex feelings, and they communicate those feelings, sometimes in ways that can be intercepted by enemy surveillance.
Nah. Ukrainians are relying on conscription just like Russians are.
Many of them don’t want to die in a war they have a very good chance of losing.
Russia has already lost the war i.e. their stated objectives.
The only remaining question is whether Ukrainian regains all it’s territory and secured an agreement, or if it stalemates e.g. 2014 - Feb. 2022.
Russia has already lost the war
Sorry you think this is a fact.
The only remaining question is whether Ukrainian regains all it’s territory and secured an agreement
I hope you’re not including Crimea in this. Nobody realistically believes Ukraine has a chance of taking Crimea without foreign troops assisting them in combat.
Two weeks old account and spreading russian propaganda. Name a more iconic duo… I’ll wait.
You’re the only one spreading propaganda, lol. I’m trying to bring you back down to earth, but I can see you’re too far gone for that.
Remember this conversation when Ukraine surrenders. You are being manipulated without even realizing it.
We both know there’s no point returning to this conversation later. By then you’ll be already using another account to spread your bullshit, because you’re just too obvious.
Russia lost. There were objectives set at the start, and they are no longer capable of achieving them. Russia lost this just as much as the US lost Vietnam.
Crimea can be starved out, and Ukraine is close to getting what they need to do this. They need to be within 75mi of the M14 highway (plus a few more miles because you don’t want artillery to be right at the front line). From there, they can hit all supply lines headed west, which would include all of Crimea. The Ukranians have sent missiles into the Kerch bridge before and can keep doing it. Airplanes can’t keep the whole of Crimea supplied, and neither can the Sevastopol docks.
So basically, wherever that incursion is that keeps a <75mi range to the highway, everything to the west of that is no longer viable for Russia to hold. It might take a while to starve them out, but it can’t hold forever. Putin can choose to acknowledge this and pull out, but he’s more likely to take the Hitler solution of demanding every soldier fight to the last in order to save his own face.
The real question is, though: how far down your throat is that Putin-faced dildo of yours?
Do any soldiers want in? I bet both sides are tired
I remember reading when the war first started that Russia has the numbers to continually onslaught for a long time. If they’re pulling prisoners, the old and young, etc., is that really true anymore?
It’s very ducking complicated, but I’ll do my best to give you a sensible answer. I live in Russia and while I’m no journalist or expert, maybe I have something worthwhile to say for an insight.
We do have the numbers, period - there’s money in killing our neighbors, there’s some sort of twisted fate or purpose that always emerges during this kind of times, and there’s people willing to do this kind of stuff for the kind of money or purpose offered. There’s also, well, just people of various backgrounds, skills, and capabilites to forcefully throw into the war effort, but the most important thing is that it’s not just a number game - like, it’s not a dead-simple RTS game where you select some units and magically convert them into equally capable combatants over a set period of time to go and win with some tactics.
Despite the somewhat prevalent opinion, this is not a popular war, it’s not supported or sacred or anything - Russia wouldn’t see so many people fleeing and imprisoned otherwise. Wouldn’t have to forcefully mobilise anyone either.
There’s enough people in the country that the government can try and throw at the wall of this war and see if they stick and magically do something, but that doesn’t guarantee any success of its own and has massive risks that even the current old men aren’t willing to take.
As a bonus, any good dictator loves a war, especially a war that’s prolonged, that’s convenient excuse for anything - establish the right kind of info, punish anyone who disagrees, make people praise you for the very little they may get because things could always be worse, make the war the excuse, tell people it’s good and creates work places and gives them purposes, and so and so forth. I don’t belive Putin wants an end to this war - he’d much rather let it help him sit tighter on his blood-drenched throne, and make Ukraine suffer for not playing along with his egomaniac ambitions; under Putin, the war dies with him, not a minute earlier.
Thank you for explaining all that. It’s nice to see a real, not paid for, version of events from inside. Our government in the US does some horrific things and some our people do too. I think we’re all the same in that, war sucks for everyone but the leaders that want it and the war equipment manufacturers that don’t have to see what their stuff does.
They’ve been pulling undesirables in hopes of wearing down Ukraine with them, a general mobilization of the population has not happened yet I believe.
It’s the ol’ meat avalanche tactic once again, and Russia’s leadership is once again forgetting that logistics and hardware win wars… and they’re quickly running on fumes…
Andrei’s mom knows what to say to reporters to protect her son, I hope.
I see nothing has changed then since early 2022.
Here are a bunch of quotes from All Quiet On the Western Front
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2662852-im-westen-nichts-neues
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The calls offer a rare glimpse of the war as it looked through Russian eyes — a point of view that seldom makes its way into Western media, largely because Russia has made it a crime to speak honestly about the conflict in Ukraine.
They also show clearly how the war has progressed, from the professional soldiers who initially powered Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion to men from all walks of life compelled to serve in grueling conditions.
“As long as we are needed here, we will carry out our task,” a soldier named Artyom told AP from eastern Ukraine at the end of May, where he’d been stationed for eight months without break.
In the spring, as the Professor’s brothers drove down a road outside their hometown in Russia, a car made a U-turn into the side of their vehicle, sending it spinning as a semi bore down on them.
Called up for military service from a small town in Russia’s far east, he soon found himself in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province, on the southern approach to Bakhmut.
In September, Andrei’s mother told AP her son was home, keeping himself busy with his family and collecting pine cones from the taiga.
The original article contains 3,277 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 94%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not seeing how any of the people listed “couldn’t avoid mobilization.” Militaries around the world hire from the poor and desperate, but the story makes no indication that people are forced into service.
“There’s no f------ ‘dying the death of the brave’ here,” one soldier told his brother from the front in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. “You just die like a f------ earthworm.”
Wow, secret phone calls in English, who would have thunk, eh?
Imagine discovering translators exist.
I feel like I just lost a number of brain cells from reading this.
I guess you would have wanted the raw voltage fluctuations of the microphone he spoke into? Or the vibration of the diaphragm?
Did you know that simply learning multiple languages can set you up with a job for the rest of your life?
It’s crazy, I know.
