STRINGER/Reuters
The military draft announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin sent hordes of fearful fighting-age men fleeing for the border, but even they couldn’t have appreciated the true horror of what those unlucky enough to be mobilized and sent to the frontline in Ukraine are having to face.
Reports of drafted Russians being sent to fight with wildly insufficient training and “barely usable” equipment have abounded for weeks, but a new report suggests that recruits are resorting to pretending to be dead in the heat of battle to save their own lives.
Independent Russian outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe spoke to the wives of three men mobilized into Moscow’s 423rd Guards Motor Rifle Regiment at the end of September. The women, whose names have been changed, said their husbands are now facing court martial for leaving the frontline after being deployed into a living nightmare in Ukraine last month.