“They paid us 205,000 rubles ($3,365) a month,” mentioned Aleksandr, a middle-aged man from Tatarstan who just lately returned from two months of preventing in Ukraine as a volunteer. “They didn’t give us our fight pay – 8,000 rubles ($130) a day. They didn’t pay any bonuses both.
“We have been nothing to them. Zero. It was shameful,” he mentioned.
Aleksandr was one in every of a number of volunteer fighters from the Volga River area who agreed to talk to RFE/RL on situation of anonymity. Just like the others on this report, his identify has been modified because of fears of repercussions.
I used to be shocked that they didn’t put common officers in command. Our unit commander was a former police officer who had by no means held a weapon or fought in any respect. In actual fact, he had been dismissed from the police!”
The entire volunteers had comparable tales of their experiences in Moscow’s unprovoked warfare towards neighboring Ukraine, experiences they are saying left those that survived feeling mistreated and deceived.
Viktor, one other Russian volunteer, recalled that after his two-month time period of service was full, he and the opposite volunteers in his unit have been bussed out of Ukraine to Russia’s western Rostov area. The automobiles stopped in a area about 10 kilometers from the closest highway. An officer distributed plastic baggage to the boys containing their paperwork, their telephones, and different private belongings they’d surrendered earlier than heading to the battle zone.
“And the way are we presupposed to get to Rostov?” Viktor recalled asking the officer.
“The freeway is that manner,” got here the reply.
After the boys made their technique to the highway and started hitchhiking towards Rostov-on-Don, an empty army truck marked with the Latin letter Z — a logo of Russia’s warfare towards Ukraine — stopped to select them up. Viktor had the impression this wasn’t the primary time the motive force had met such stranded fighters.
The driving force allow them to out on the outskirts of the town and the boys shortly made their technique to a financial institution machine, hoping to withdraw among the funds they’d been promised can be ready of their accounts, to be able to make their manner again house.
“Some guys had completely nothing of their accounts,” Viktor informed RFE/RL. “We have been later informed that the financial institution had misplaced the knowledge of dozens of males in our battalion. I had just a few thousand rubles in my account. All of us withdrew no matter we might and divided it up amongst us so the fellows might get house. That’s the best way we handled each other.”
“They may have at the very least taken us to the station,” he mentioned about the best way the Russian army left them to make their manner house on their very own. “We voluntarily went to assist our military, and that was the best way they handled us.”
Viktor mentioned he was paid 330,000 rubles ($5,420) of the 410,000 ruble ($6,725) wage that he was promised. He obtained no fight pay or different premiums.
“Among the guys in my battalion didn’t get something,” he added. “Some obtained 20,000 [$330].”
The boys who spoke with RFE/RL have been all members of BARS battalions, an acronym that stands for the Russian phrase “army military reserve of the nation.” In some references, nonetheless, it stands for “particular army military reserve.”
We weren’t even given medical checks. If you happen to have been sick, they took you anyway…. They dressed us in previous disused military uniforms. Our rifles have been rusty, and we needed to repair them up ourselves.”
President Vladimir Putin signed the order creating the BARS system in 2015, however has by no means spoken publicly about it since. It was not often talked about till the autumn of 2021, when the army began sending extra troops to western Russia and Belarus for “workouts” that turned out to be the prelude to the February 24 invasion of Ukraine.
That assault didn’t turn into as fast and profitable as Russian army planners apparently anticipated, and the warfare is grinding on practically six months after the invasion. Moscow has been stingy with casualty statistics: Its final official tally got here in March, when officers reported that 1,351 Russian troopers had been killed. Western intelligence estimates put the variety of Russians killed at round 20,000 and complete causalities at 70,000-80,000.
BARS battalions have turn into one of many instruments the Russian army has used to fulfill its rising demand for fight troops. BARS models are made up of volunteers, a lot of whom are demobilized former officers and troopers. Looking out via army paperwork, open on-line sources, and speeches by Russian officers and Russia-backed separatists in elements of japanese Ukraine, RFE/RL has documented reference to at the very least 20 such battalions — usually referred to by numbers corresponding to BARS-1, BARS-2, and so forth. Specialists consulted by RFE/RL estimate that they signify about 10,000 volunteers.
In keeping with official recruiting bulletins, volunteer fighters as much as the age of 42 are accepted into BARS models. Former officers may be as much as 57 years of age. Nevertheless, the entire volunteers who spoke to RFE/RL served as troopers and all of them have been aged 45-50.
Some BARS battalions are funded by the Protection Ministry, whereas others are connected to the Union of Donbas Volunteers, a semiofficial group headed by Aleksandr Borodai, a Russian parliament deputy who previously headed Russia-backed forces in Ukraine’s Donetsk area.
“We weren’t even given medical checks,” Aleksandr recalled of his expertise displaying as much as volunteer at a army fee in his hometown in Tatarstan. “If you happen to have been sick, they took you anyway. They gave us rucksacks, fed us, and shipped us off to Novocherkassk,” within the Rostov area close to Ukraine.
Once we signed the paperwork, the knowledge on the prime of the shape concerning the events to the settlement had been left clean so they might later write in no matter they wished.”
“There they dressed us in previous disused military uniforms. Our rifles have been rusty, and we needed to repair them up ourselves. We have been there for seven days after which they despatched us towards the entrance line,” he mentioned.
“We signed our contracts in Novocherkassk,” he continued. “However they didn’t give us any time to learn them. They simply gave them to us and informed us to rush up and signal them.”
Not one of the males who spoke to RFE/RL had a transparent understanding of whether or not they have been signing contracts with the Protection Ministry or another group.
“Once we signed the paperwork,” Boris, one other demobilized volunteer, mentioned, “the knowledge on the prime of the shape concerning the events to the settlement had been left clean so they might later write in no matter they wished.”
Viktor mentioned he signed his contract after he arrived within the Rostov area. He mentioned he requested the colonel who distributed the kinds if he was signing a contract with the Protection Ministry.
When the others understood that there was nowhere to clean their garments and nothing to vary into, they began going via deserted [Ukrainian] properties on the lookout for footwear and stuff.”
“He answered me: ‘You don’t have any relationship with the armed forces. You might be partisans,’” Viktor mentioned.
The previous volunteers all complained about poor provides throughout their fight service.
“They didn’t feed us properly [at the front],” Aleksandr mentioned. “We didn’t have any cigarettes or something like that.”
Boris was skilled — “This wasn’t my first warfare,” he mentioned — and introduced plenty of gear with him.
“Naturally, I took my very own stuff. I had a uniform nonetheless from the Soviet occasions, my berets, my footwear, my rubber boots,” he mentioned. “I had two rucksacks. I additionally took meals — condensed milk, sausage, canned items.”
“When the others understood that there was nowhere to clean their garments and nothing to vary into, they began going via deserted [Ukrainian] properties on the lookout for footwear and stuff,” he added, echoing widespread experiences of looting by the Russian army in Ukraine.
The boys additionally complained that their models suffered losses due to unqualified management.
“I used to be shocked that they didn’t put common officers in command,” Viktor mentioned. “Our unit commander was a former police officer who had by no means held a weapon or fought in any respect. In actual fact, he had been dismissed from the police! He didn’t know techniques. He didn’t perceive something. And we suffered casualties due to it.”
Among the households of BARS fighters who have been killed in motion additionally confronted ill-treatment from the army, the boys mentioned.
“I’ve a good friend who was there with me,” Aleksandr mentioned. “He died proper at the start. I simply came upon that his household didn’t get any assist in any respect. They buried him at their very own expense and didn’t obtain any compensation for his dying.”
