I somehow managed to gather myself, turned around in the opposite direction, and ran. That was scary as f*ck.
“The commander’s drinking ended up getting me hit”
The commander drank all the time. Maybe he was dealing with stress or something, but he was clearly an unprepared man. His drinking ended up getting me hit. He told me to go to headquarters and get a new bird — a drone. I said, “Look, we have another bird, we can get it up. We’ll definitely make it through the night. Why would I go out there now? If I go out, they’ll waste me immediately. Night ‘birds’ fly with thermal imaging. They can see you from a mile away — you’re a shining light on a black screen. The way to HQ is through an open field, it’ll be impossible not to see me.” But they sent me anyway.
I got to HQ and picked up the bird. They give me another package. “What’s in it?” I ask. He says it’s for the commander. I look in the bag, and there’s two bottles — vodka and some cognac. The commander wanted to get drunk and they sent me to pick up the booze. I’m on my way back through the open field and I hear a humming sound above me. I look up and there’s a drone. And then — boom. I fall to the ground. I don’t understand anything. My only thought is, if I lose my legs, I’ll just shoot myself in the head — that way I won’t have to suffer. I look down, my legs are still there, all bloody, but still there. Thank God.
I dumped the booze bag and crawled to the nearest cellar. I get on the radio: “Take me away, I’m wounded. I can’t walk. I bandaged myself.” “We’re not taking you,” they reply. “It’s too dangerous.” And I get it. They’re not gonna take me because they’re right — it is too dangerous. I’m shaking all over. I have a tremor. I’d probably lost a liter of blood by then. And then I decided to crawl back. I almost got to the evacuation point, except I missed it by about 500 meters to the left.
Everyone drinks. Some commanders are on either promedol, an opioid, or bath salts. I saw one dude on bath salts — he was just like in all the videos [on the Internet]. The ones on promedol usually drool. Promedol is an anesthetic that’s given to everybody. It’s a very old Soviet narcotic analgesic. It has a pronounced narcotic effect — you take it and you sit there drooling. Everyone is supposed to be given promedol — one capsule or two. I don’t remember exactly, but they don’t give them to everybody. They were given to them on paper — the reports said that we were given a first aid kit. You’ve been given a first aid kit, but there’s no promedol in it. Where is it? Somebody must’ve taken it for themselves, right? That’s how they had a constant dose of the drug.
The commander of the neighboring unit had a special man — a promedol addict — who would do anything for a dose. He’d run around searching dead bodies. Say you needed a rifle scope or a new piece of armor. You would get him promedol, and he’d run right to the line of contact to loot corpses, almost to the Ukrainian positions.
“They tied me to a tree and said: ‘That’s it, they’re gonna put you down now’’
There were also cases of people not following orders or refusing to go somewhere where they were asked. That person was then brought either to the commander, or, if he’s too lazy to do it, they’ll ask his minions, the suck-ups — I can’t call them anything else. They’re not human. They bring him to a tree, duct tape his hands and feet, and fix him to the tree so that he doesn’t run away. And they shoot him at point-blank range from 5-10 meters out. I didn’t see the executions personally, but judging by the corpses that I saw, it’s all true.
Or they’ll take you to the commander and put two armored vests on you. The commander gets up and shoots at the vests with an automatic weapon. Even if there’s two vests — two vests can usually withstand an assault rifle — all your ribs will be broken. And you just slowly die. Or they make you put on a helmet and shoot you in the helmet. You won’t have a skull after that.
My company had two people “zeroed out” [executed — The Insider]. I don’t know the details because I was in the field pulling people out at the time. I came in and asked: “Where are they?” I won’t say the call signs, but where are those two guys? And I’m told they’ve been executed.
We didn’t have that in our company that often because the casualty rate was high. But that was common in neighboring units, where they had not 250, but 1,000 or 1,500 people.
I had another story. I have to go forward to our positions to bring them supplies, and I hear a Baba Yaga flying ahead. I’m not going there for sure, because that’s suicide. I veer to the left knowing that there are neighboring units there. In about 700 meters I turn left. Some of our men catch me and say, “You’re one of the mobilized guys.” I reply that I’m not. He says, “Why are you f*cking lying to us?” I reply: “Take my military ID. Look, my military ID says I’m a contract soldier.” He says “don’t f*ck with us.” They tied me to a tree. They were looking for some mobilized guy who deserted or tried to run away. They tied me up and said, “Well, we’re going to waste you now.” There was a big hole behind the tree and there were probably 20, 30 people lying dead in the hole.
I was saved by someone on the radio that called in and said they found that guy who tried to run away. I don’t know why, but I feel sorry for the guy. I guess they executed him. They untied me and sent me to the commander. He wasn’t drunk, but he seemed to be on promedol. He sat there drooling — and offered me 30 grams of vodka to calm me down.
They say it’s common practice there. They usually recruited those who came back from the hospital after wounds or with poor health, who they weren’t sorry to see die. If a person doesn’t execute an order, you ought to call the military prosecutor’s office. Military prosecutors, of course, aren’t going out into the field, and there’s no one to take them away. You can’t put them in a pit either — who’s going to dig it? They only dig them for bodies. Nobody would dig cellars either. They were forced to dig trenches for themselves — right up to the latrines, because commanders were afraid to go out to the barn at night. They made us dig luxury dug-outs, close to two stories, while the boys had to make do with wooden planks and a little grass on top.
“There aren’t many patriots here — they don’t usually live long”
No one there’s openly opposing the regime or saying that “we’re going to overthrow Putin” and all that. Of course, they say [Putin] stirred some sh*t up that nobody wants. Even when the “patriots” arrive, very soon they start saying: “What the f*ck are we doing here, what the f*ck do we need this for?” There are “ultra-patriots” here too, but they don’t usually live long. They’re the first ones to run — and the first to be put down.
There was a 54-year-old man. His wife had cancer. He came not even for money, but because he needed a soldier’s benefit from the government to treat his wife. He said: “I know that people have to be killed here, I’ve made my choice. If they kill me, well, f*ck it, my wife will get five million [rubles; $58,800]. She’ll be cured, and my children will live well. He lived in the countryside, with a 35,000-ruble [$410] salary, three kids, and a sick wife. What do you say to him? ‘Go retrain and work in IT?’”
Two Wagner guys were deployed with us. One of them pussied out and went straight to the military police. He ended up executing his own guys. I’m talking about his own guys. You have to understand — it’s not like they’re from my unit, but it’s like shooting them in the back. It’s one thing if you don’t want to go to war yourself, right? Or if you’re against this war. It’s another thing when — I just don’t understand this logic, you come in just because you want the dough — and you waste everybody you see. And the second guy — he was at the front for about a week, managed to borrow money from about everyone there, and bounced. He claimed he was off to buy drones in Belgorod and just disappeared.
