Ukraine intercepts call from Russian recruits: 'Their own people are shooting us'
Created: 10/17/2022, 4:07 p.m
By: Tim Vincent Dicke
The Ukraine war is bloody.
Escape is hardly possible for the Russian conscripts.
A phone call reveals the "horror" at the front.
Kyiv – Ukraine's domestic intelligence agency SBU intercepted and released a call from a Russian recruit.
In the phone call with a woman in his native Russia, the fighter describes the situation at the front.
In it he claims that you cannot escape unless you want to be shot by your own people.
First of all, the mobilized soldier says that the military leadership didn't even tell them that they were in Ukraine.
"Can you believe that?" he says to the woman on the other end of the line.
His squad would have been told they were taking part in an exercise.
"Damn, yes, we know that.
But we wrote to all departments, nobody cares," replies the woman.
Since the information came from the Ukrainian secret service - and thus from a party to the conflict - the information could not be independently verified.
Drafted for the Ukraine war: Morale is devastating among many of the Russian recruits.
(Archive image) © Stanislav Krasilnikov/imago
Ukraine war: is Russia covering up the losses?
Tapped phone calls had already impressively shown that many combatants do not know that they are being sent into the bloody Ukraine conflict.
"Nobody told us we were going to war.
They warned us the day before we were going to leave," said a soldier over the phone, reported by the
New York Times
at the end of September.
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In the conversation that has now been published, the soldier accuses the military leadership of lying.
They want to cover up the heavy losses suffered by Russia in the Ukraine war.
"They haven't sent you the corpses yet and they won't do so anytime soon," the fighter explains.
However, there are many dead soldiers from the city of Lipetsk and the Lebedyan region.
"What a horror" in Ukraine
Then the conversation continues.
"Damned.
Igoryok called.
He said you didn't have anything to eat," says the woman.
The soldier replies: "There is no food here, that's true.
The ones who don't have any money eat the crappy grain germs from the fields.
And they sent us prison inmates.
They were brought to the front at the very front.
And we sat behind them.
If someone tries to escape, we kill them.”
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"What a horror," replies the Russian.
The recruit then says soberly: "That's how it's set up.
We are second in line and monitor the first.
And behind us is another line, we can't go back either.
So it's impossible to run away.
Your own people would shoot you." (tvd)