Intercepted calls from the front lines in Ukraine show a growing number of Russian soldiers want out
Intercepted calls from the front lines in Ukraine show a growing number of Russian soldiers want out
In audio intercepts from the front lines in Ukraine, Russian soldiers speak in shorthand. They describe 200s to mean dead, 300s to mean wounded, and 500s to describe people who refuse to fight.
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.
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10I imagine most of the calls are pretty similar to these ones. I can’t imagine there’s much morale left for the Russians.
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Seems like every generation has to learn the Old Lie again and again.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est
38Thank you for sharing this. I don't read much poetry, much less in German. But this kept me on the edge of my seat.
6Jesus 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.
4That was a tough read in both ways.
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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
19I see nothing has changed then since early 2022.
16If 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
14Here are a bunch of quotes from All Quiet On the Western Front
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2662852-im-westen-nichts-neues
11I couldn't finish that book, way too depressing. Also I kept wanting to scream at all those kids to just go home and stop fighting over fucking nothing.
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"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.
10Unlikely. 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.
29An 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.
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10It'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.
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16As another Russian, I can confirm that.
Also, I'd add that, while Russia is full of men, and technically the manpower is close to infinite, the equipment is a whole another story.
Government organized a lot of volunteer services to allow civilians to support the effort by donating clothing, collecting money to buy armor and even guns.
Many on the frontlines are constantly talking about critical lack of basic supplies, and drafting any more people is just sending them to sure death without any effect on the actual military effort the Russian government pursues. This is probably one of the core reasons Russia doesn't escalate the conflict any more.
And yes - war is not popular here, but sadly, that's something we mostly have to share quietly on our kitchens.
15How do Russians against the war rationalize the actions of the country? Is there a sense Putin is catering to the will of capitalist oligarchs who want access to the gas reserves in Western Ukraine, or at least want to avoid an EU or NATO-aligned Ukraine from cutting off their access to these resources? Or is this a war based solely on one man's ego? My understanding is the Putin ego is a careful balancing act that keeps him useful for the capital interests with the propaganda around him being more of a postmodern type crafting of his brand and the country's image.
0
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.
7It'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...
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Andrei’s mom knows what to say to reporters to protect her son, I hope.
7Do any soldiers want in? I bet both sides are tired
7This 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!
0Maybe 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.
-9Russia has drafted 300.000 men (according to official numbers; unofficial estimates are higher), starting in September 2022.
Forcefully.
17Do you understand how mandatory military service works? Around the world, it's almost entirely training unless people volunteer to enter combat. It's incredibly unpleasant to avoid mandatory military service in countries that require it (South Korea, Singapore, Russia, etc.) but it's by no means impossible.
-7
“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?
-50Imagine discovering translators exist.
60I feel like I just lost a number of brain cells from reading this.
29I guess you would have wanted the raw voltage fluctuations of the microphone he spoke into? Or the vibration of the diaphragm?
21Did 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.
6Least stupid ruzzia supporter
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