Reports of Russian conscripts being sent to fight with woefully inadequate training and “barely usable” equipment have been mounting for weeks, but a new report suggests recruits are feigning death in the heat of battle to save their lives. The independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe spoke to the wives of three men who were mobilized into Moscow’s 423rd Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment in late September. The women, whose names have been changed, said their husbands are now facing court-martial for deserting the front line after deploying to a living nightmare in Ukraine last month. The men’s training reportedly involved little more than digging trenches at a camp in the forests of Russia’s Belgorod region before being transferred to Ukraine’s Luhansk region just two weeks later on October 14. The recruits were reportedly commanded by two other mobilized men — neither of whom had combat experience. After their deployment, the troops’ loved ones didn’t hear from them again until October 26, when the men contacted their wives desperate for help. A wife of a 24-year-old recruit said her husband’s company had been bombarded by artillery for 12 hours, during which one of the commanders was “blown to pieces”. The surviving commander ordered a retreat — only for higher military authorities to order them back to the front. “After they refused to return, they were offered new equipment, bulletproof vests, helmets — or a court-martial,” said the woman, referred to as “Irina.” She added that her husband, along with 26 other survivors from his party, is now hiding in an abandoned house. “Their bank cards are blocked, they are without livelihood, without money, without food, without water,” said Irina. “My husband told me he hadn’t eaten for several days and we don’t know what to do about it.” Another wife, “Ekaterina”, said her 27-year-old husband had similar training only in digging trenches. He is believed to have been sent to a part of the front in Ukraine where 76 men had been killed in bombings about two weeks before his arrival. On October 25, Ekaterina says her husband and his companions came under a barrage of their own. “For many hours they just lay on the ground and pretended to be dead for one simple reason: they no longer had any weapons except machine guns,” Ekaterina said. “And there were mortars against them, drones flew over them, if they even moved a finger, then a drone would fly right in and destroy them.” Reports of the dire state of the Kremlin’s mobilized forces come after Moscow’s propagandists were encouraged to die gruesome deaths for Putin rather than face the defeat of the war.
