Pavel Filatyev, a former paratrooper within the Russian military, printed his diary on a Russian social media web site earlier this month detailing his expertise in Ukraine. He then fled his nation. Filatyev’s harrowing testimony is the primary detailed account of the realities dealing with Russian troopers nonetheless combating in Ukraine six months after the invasion started.
On August 1, Pavel Filatyev, a 34-year-old Russian soldier, printed a 141-page journal of his Ukrainian battlefield expertise on Vkontakte, Russia’s equal of Fb.
Titled “ZOV” – after the tactical markings painted on Russian army autos within the Ukraine marketing campaign – the memoir was noticed by Russian-speaking Western army specialists and created a stir on Twitter. His damning account of the conflict was picked up by a number of Western information organisations earlier than he fled Russia for an undisclosed location in Europe.
Filatyev served within the 56th Guards air assault regiment based mostly in Crimea. The unit was ordered to march from its base in late February to mainland Ukraine for what commanders known as a routine train.
Poorly geared up and disadvantaged of coaching, command targets or logistics, his unit arrived within the south-eastern Ukrainian metropolis of Kherson on March 1 after different Russian military models had already occupied the town’s port. Filatyev’s file of his expertise is an eloquent testimony to Moscow’s callous disregard for the “grunts”, or foot troopers, on the battlefield.
“Have you ever ever seen the work of the Sack of Rome by the barbarians? That is the easiest way to explain what was happening round me,” he wrote in an English translated excerpt printed within the Guardian. “Everybody regarded worn-out and feral, and all of us started to scour the buildings in the hunt for meals, water, a bathe and a spot for the night time; some began grabbing computer systems and no matter precious items they may discover. I used to be no exception: I discovered a hat in a smashed-up truck onsite and took it. My balaclava was too chilly. I turned disgusted with all of the looting, regardless of my wild state.”
The memoir, famous Frank Ledwidge, a former British army officer and senior fellow on the College of Portsmouth, was a “corroboration of every thing we have now seen on the battlefield” within the Ukraine conflict, which “amply describes the dearth of self-discipline and professionalism” within the Russian military.
Scant coaching, absent firm commander
Filatyev hails from a army household with a protracted line of males who served in his nation’s military.
He spent a lot of his early 20s within the Russian military, serving in Chechnya within the late 2000s earlier than leaving to work within the personal sector. In 2021, he rejoined the military for monetary causes, he defined, enlisting within the 56th Guards air assault regiment.
When he rejoined the service final yr, Filatyev anticipated higher army coaching since Russia’s defence ministry had enacted main structural reforms in 2010. However that was not the case.
The coaching his unit obtained earlier than the Ukraine marketing campaign was pitiful, in accordance with Filatyev.
In mid-February, his unit acquired a rise in coaching, alerting Filatyev to the likelihood that Russia may try some type of army motion in Ukraine.
However Filatyev’s firm commander was largely absent, and the unit’s younger political officer was left to coach the troopers as greatest he may. The Russian paratrooper additionally detailed cases the place the whole firm acquired sick because of a parachute leap and the way the whole firm caught Covid-19.
On the eve of the invasion the troopers didn’t know of any plans to invade. “I couldn’t perceive what was taking place, who was capturing at whom and from the place…I could not absolutely perceive what was happening – are we firing on the advancing Ukrainians? Perhaps on NATO?” he wrote. Filatyev was meant to comply with orders blindly, “like a stallion being led to castration”.
Consuming ‘every thing like savages’
On the march to Kherson, their autos began to both break down, run out of gasoline or get caught within the mud. Sporadic combating with the Ukrainians prompted quite a lot of casualties of their ranks and nobody knew precisely what was taking place.
Filatyev began to fret about Ukrainian resistance in a giant metropolis similar to Kherson. “I don’t assume the mayor of the town will come out with bread and salt, elevate the flag of the Russian Federation over the administration constructing,” he apprehensive in his memoirs.
After coming into the town, Filatyev found he needed to look out for himself, together with discovering meals and shelter.
He found a kitchen in an workplace constructing alongside together with his fellow troopers and after enduring a month with out washing or regular meals, “we ate every thing like savages,” he mentioned. “Every part that was there – cereal, oatmeal, jam, honey, espresso, every thing was turned the other way up and we ate every thing we may discover.”
Kherson was the primary main metropolis to fall to Russian management within the swift preliminary assault of the invasion. However as his unit pushed additional north and west from the town, the scenario worsened.
Filatyev’s unit headed in the direction of Mykolaiv, the place their advance was stopped by fierce Ukrainian resistance. For months, troopers on either side stayed within the trenches and endured intense bombardment.
The terrors of trench warfare profoundly affected Filatyev and his fellow troopers. “Each time there was an artillery barrage, I pressed my head into the bottom and [thought], ‘God, if I survive, I am going to do something to alter this!” he famous.
Corruption within the army
It wasn’t lengthy earlier than Filatyev was injured and transferred to a hospital, the place he witnessed first-hand the results of a scarcity of docs remedy.
Filatyev blames the failures he witnessed on the battlefield on “the horrible corruption and mess in (our) military, its ethical and technical obsolescence”.
Corruption, he maintains, has labored its means into Russian army establishments, destroying it from inside. “Profession development is just doable with connections and loyalty to the system,” he famous. “How can the really promising and enterprising servicemen work their means up?”
Filatyev tried to complain, writing a full report back to the defence ministry saying, “I see full anarchy, there may be solely a faint trace of fight readiness.”
Unsurprisingly, his complaints fell on deaf ears.
He’s equally important of his officers’ management in battle. “In all my time within the conflict, I can not keep in mind officers going to the difficulty of main troopers,” he mentioned. “Those that do make it to greater ranks sit and maintain their enamel clenched… all of the whereas not realising that it is as a result of they do not converse that the system is consuming itself,” he lamented.
Determined to be heard, the younger paratrooper took super dangers making an attempt to alert his superiors and finally posting his diary. However ultimately, Filatyev was compelled to conclude that he and his comrades have been merely cannon fodder for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s designs in jap Europe.
The Ukraine marketing campaign is “a conflict the place nobody will give a rattling about your safety, about what you eat and drink,” he wrote. “They’ve simply determined to throw our corpses at Ukraine, the ladies will nonetheless give delivery to extra.”
