Posted on 08/18/2022 6:41:36 PM PDT by 11th_VA
A 34-year-old Russian paratrooper named Pavel Filatyev has written a brutally critical account of his time in the Russian army leading up to and during the invasion of Ukraine...
Among other things, Filatyev details squalid, unlivable conditions throughout basic training, created and compounded by bureaucracy and ineptitude :
I had to run like a homeless from one barracks to another, looking for a bed to sleep in, until I found a place to rent at my own expense
There is not enough food for everyone, the potatoes in the soup are raw… the bread is stale
We get up at 5 in the morning, spend three hours lined up and waiting for the truck, we finally go, we arrive at 12, line up, stand, the commanders at the range do not like the way some piece of paper is filled out, the major tears up the sheet and throws it. He yells with hysterical cries that there will be no firing because of this…
Per The Guardian, yesterday, Filatyev goes on to write about his experience of the taking of Kherson:
Like savages, we ate everything there: oats, porridge, jam, honey, coffee … We didn’t give a damn about anything, we’d already been pushed to the limit. Most had spent a month in the fields with no hint of comfort, a shower or normal food.
What a wild state you can drive people to by not giving any thought to the fact that they need to sleep, eat and wash. Everything around gave us a vile feeling; like wretches we were just trying to survive.
I am not afraid to fight in war. But I need to feel justice, to understand that what I’m doing is right. And I believe that this is all failing ...
(Excerpt) Read more at lithub.com ...
France-based human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin said on August 17 that he and his team helped Pavel Filatyev to "urgently" leave Russia.
Filatyev took part in Russia's attack on Ukraine in February and March. He later wrote a book titled ZOV (A Call) in Russian. The title was written in Latin script to highlight the letters "Z" and "V."
Russian military vehicles in Ukraine are marked with those letters, which have become symbols promoted by Russian state media and other Kremlin supporters as patriotic emblems expressing support for the military and the invasion.
Before leaving Russia, Filatyev gave an interview to The Guardian saying that after his book was published, he changed his address several times to avoid possible arrest.
Filatyev also said that he was not aware of whether a criminal case has been launched against him.
President Vladimir Putin in March signed a law that calls for lengthy prison terms for distributing "deliberately false information" about Russian military operations, as the Kremlin seeks to control the narrative about the war in Ukraine it launched in late February.
The law envisages sentences of up to 10 years in prison for individuals convicted of an offense, while the penalty for the distribution of "deliberately false information" about the Russian military that leads to "serious consequences" is 15 years in prison.
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-paratrooper-condemned-war-flees/31994080.html
Meanwhile, Ivan is rolling up the Eastern and Southern territories….pretty impressive with a starving bunch of demoralized soldiers….they need to take Odessa and get the corrupted beggar to the negotiating table.
This clown show keeps getting better.
That’s why he’s not in charge.
And he hates you and me, too.
“A 34-year-old Russian paratrooper“
34 yrs old is a “young” soldier? Not sure that qualifies as young for a boots on the ground soldier.
Who keeps posting this propaganda? It’s obviously not true.
This story is nonsense.
The grunts in the Russian Army are cannon fodder. But their demographics are going to doom them. They’ll run out of cannon fodder 20 years from now.
1.2 births per couple, where 2.1 is replacement.
Add in alcoholism, drugs, and violence/suicide and it doesn’t look good.
There have been no major gains of any kind since July 10th. Maybe they moved up a mile or two. But then they've lost more than that in Kherson.
So Putin has his Vindman too?
Everything this man has reported has been reporting about the Russian military for decades. Only thing he left out was the Russian practice of gang raping conscripts.
Theres only so many young men in fighting shape to go around. Plus I don’t think they’ve started conscription yet. In a long war you take what you can get.
Yep. The Russian army is getting manpower from the demographically lean years in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s right now. They will do a little better in the next couple of years because Putin brought in a brief mini baby boom when he stabilized the country and improved economic conditions enough for people to have kids again. But it ended when Putin’s rule become entrenched and people became less optimistic about the future.
That’s why they are recruiting men in their 40’s and 50’s with prior military experience. The young men do not what to risk their lives and are avoiding military service.
.
How will Russia take Odessa, exactly?
Really. You post a lot. What is Russia's plan to "Take Odessa"? Nuke it?
They had a Narrow path in March. That ship has sailed. They can't even get a Tank across the Anonovsky Bridge, now, and there are 4 more Bridges between where they are now and Odessa.
Russia taking Odessa is way beyond wishful thinking at this point. Its Crackpipe-dream territory, now.
You want to know what is really going on? Watch the youtube video posted today of Judge Napolitano interviewing Col. McGregor.
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