A army billboard with the slogan “Serving Russia is a real job” in Saint Petersburg on September 20, 2022.
Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images
A Russian defector said his unit was given “no actual training” before being sent to Ukraine.
Nikita Chibrin told CNN that training was just being given a weapon, a target, and 5,000 bullets.
He said some soldiers bragged that they would be great in Ukraine but were broken by the fighting.
A Russian defector who is now in Europe said his unit was given almost no training before it was sent to fight in Ukraine, which left soldiers broken after they experienced the front lines.
Nikita Chibrin told CNN that the training his unit received was just a commander giving soldiers a weapon, a target, and 5,000 bullets.
“No one was doing anything. There was no actual training,” he said.
Chibrin told CNN that some of the men in his unit had bragged about how good they would be at fighting in Ukraine, saying they would be “like Rambo,” but they were then broken when they came back from being deployed.
“Those who said they’d be shooting Ukrainians easily, when they come back from the front lines … they could not even speak to me. They saw the war, they saw defeat, saw their [fellow] combatants being murdered, saw corpses.”
Chibrin was sent to Ukraine early in the war, and reports suggest that Russia’s training for many soldiers has only reduced since then, as it has had to call up reservists to fight.
Reports and intelligence assessments have suggested that Russia is giving only minimal training and poor equipment to many of its soldiers.
In September, UK intelligence predicted that new troops would suffer heavily, because of how little training they received.
Chibrin said that he had initially refused to fight, but that his commander said he would go to jail and that his family would have “big problems” if he did not go.
His commander then attacked him, put him in a vehicle and closed the door. “And I couldn’t open [it] from inside. So, that’s how I went to Ukraine,” he said.
Chibrin deserted the military in September. He is now requesting asylum in a European city, CNN reported, without naming his current whereabouts.
Chibrin told CNN that he was part of the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, which has been linked to alleged war crimes in Bucha.
He said that men in his unit raped two women in Ukraine, a mother and daughter, and that commanders shrugged when they learned and that the soldiers were beaten and sent home, but not jailed.
He also said that his unit included some men who were “maniacs who enjoy killing.”
Chibrin said he did not commit any crimes himself, and said he did not witness any murders.
Chibrin said he was in and out of the fighting. He was around Kyiv in March, before his unit was brought back to Belarus, then spent time in a military hospital in Russia, before going to the Kharkiv region in May.
Russia’s defense ministry did not respond to CNN regarding Chibrin’s claims.