Soldier's Perspective on Current Conflict

Zaporizhzhia direction.

We're stuck in one place. Ever since we took Kostiantynivka,

we've been stuck in one place,

that's it. We're not going anywhere at all, I won't lie to anyone else.

I'm telling it like it is. We're stuck in one place,

the guys are just dying,

that's all. We're not going anywhere else.

Yeah, and what they show on TV, well,

they're just reassuring the people, trying to reassure them

that everything really is

fine, that there's some progress.

But if you really look deeper into what's happening here, there isn't really any

progress at all.

Because we might take their defenses, capture some settlement or other, you know.

населенный пункт.

Fine, we'll take it in about two weeks, then a week later they'll drive us back out of there,

and we'll have to take it back about five times, and they'll drive us back out again

Smoke them out. That's the current position.

Well, how can I put it?

There aren't enough people, there's a shortage everywhere. People are dying,

dying and dying. You can see for yourself.

And the only thing is, in all these four years, they quickly

took Mariupol, that's all. We really took it in four

months, looted it too and started rebuilding

really quickly. But everything else is somehow

taking a long time, we're just treading water. In fact, nobody needs anything.

They're just making their money off this war. That's all.

So, accordingly, there are supplies of some kind, or people

receive payments, accordingly, people die, and those

payments are no longer paid out to people, yeah, to that

person, they're transferred back to the state.

So they either save some of their money or make money from it.

That's it. Other than that, there hasn't been any progress,

so

They simply don't want it. You agree, if they wanted to,

really, we'd have ended this war already.

So much military equipment, so much of that

newfangled weaponry, artillery, all sorts of

different things.

But in fact, none of it exists.

So many losses, so many. Figure, every week

they send in a hundred, 150 people every week.

People keep arriving. Why? Because there's a shortage of people

and they get killed again.

And here, it often happens that the command

takes money from the people,

and somewhere in a unit, they say, if you want to go on leave, give us money,

fuck. You want that? Give us cash, fuck.

Don't want to go into an assault — put five hundred on the table

in cash,

fuck. Sometimes they send you on a combat mission, pay up

they take your card and documents, leaving you with nothing,

excuse my

expression, and send you into an assault. They even escort you with their own equipment.

Well, it's outrageous, excuse me, this has gone

beyond the pale. How can anyone

serve at all after that? I was

hoping that I could somehow help Russia, yeah,

that somehow

there was something patriotic, maybe, something like that,

that I could make some kind of contribution.

But when I saw commanders' attitude toward personnel

in certain units,

my view changed somewhat.

When I arrive at a unit, they tell me,

"And you

are just meat to me. You came,

you'll leave, they'll bring me others." So I couldn't care less.

барабану.

There's even

sometimes this feeling, like, why the hell am I even here,

what am I

fighting for? So now there's no point anymore

at all.

I can't explain why I'm here or what I'm even

fighting for.

When I set out, I thought, I'm really going to fight for Russia.

But when I got here, I lost that sense and the belief that

I really am now

fighting for Russia, you know, somehow fighting for it.

Turns out, there isn't any of that now. We're all just surviving here now.

They're basically just sending everyone to their deaths.

They're reducing the population,

that's how it is. And to get out of this, to somehow avoid it,

to back out of the contract— that's impossible.

Either they'll imprison you, though they probably won't even do that.

Now, instead of imprisoning you, they send you straight into assaults.