“You're Always a Target.” How a Chechen War Veteran Fled the Ukrainian War
In the fall of 2022, 42-year-old Alexander was mobilized and sent to Ukraine. His unit was driven to the “front line” in “meat assaults” by commanders using blocking detachments that fired in case of retreat, he claims. In August 2023, Alexander was able to desert and left Russia, but he is still haunted by nightmares and anxiety about his future.
On January 27, he was sent first to Rostov, then to the Luhansk region.
– There were many abandoned houses where we settled. There were very few people, especially in the villages closer to the border with Russia. Then we were transferred to Belogorovka. The situation there was simply depressing, bombed-out houses, five-story buildings with gaping holes, destroyed by shells. We stayed there for about two weeks, then we were transferred to positions where we built dugouts a kilometer from the front line. Then the evacuation of the wounded and the dead was added to our duties. There were a lot of losses, even during evacuations and during the construction of fortifications. There was not a week without “two-hundredths” [ Dead ] and “three-hundredths” (wounded).
Many died from shrapnel wounds as a result of drone attacks, Alexander says.
- People were torn apart - someone got hit in the head, an eye was knocked out. We went in platoons to evacuate the plant near Belogorovka, which they kept trying to take. Only corpses, craters, he continues.
According to him, there was very fierce fighting for a small section of the road, the “Storm Z” groups ( sabotage and assault units of the Russian army, formed mainly from prisoners ), constantly entering the positions, did not stay there for more than five minutes. The most unlucky were those who ended up on the front line.
– There was a battalion commander, call sign “Bely”. You could say he wiped out his Luhansk guys on the front line – with constant assaults , especially when they were taking the local filtration station. He killed everyone, and eventually got to our guys. They were evacuating the wounded, and he wanted to send them to storm. The first time he succeeded, the guys didn't know what was what yet.
The second time he shot them in the legs with a machine gun. I had a connection with the first line, and I heard him talking, or rather, just yelling - an inadequate person. And they didn't allow us to bomb the water filtration station, attack it with tanks or anything heavy, because, according to rumors, this Bely either had investments in it, or was promised it. Because of this - constant assaults.
Alexander explains that there was also a kind of penal battalion besides “Storm Z” - simply “Storm”.
- These are the same death row inmates. You could end up there for anything: drinking, insubordination, failure to follow orders. There was one who filed a resignation report, which he didn't even write himself, the political officer did it for him. I don't know what they had a disagreement about, but the man didn't drink, and “Storm” was short five men, and he was the one they took. As a result, as the paramedic told me, he was lying in a coma in a hospital in St. Petersburg, with half his face made of plastic. The mobilized men were basically treated like slaves. Upon arrival, one company of our battalion was immediately assigned to “Storm”, and during the first assault, 37 people out of 110 remained
- No matter how Russia starts a war, there is a shortage of personnel, equipment, and gear. And the officers drank, and they continue to drink, and they abused the soldiers there, and they abuse them here. The command, they were cattle then, and they are cattle now. Nothing has changed; they treat soldiers like meat, except that they didn't openly "zero" them back then, he says.
https://www.svoboda.org/a/kak-veteran-chechenskoy-voyny-bezhal-s-voyny-ukrainskoy/33447115.html
