Russian Soldiers Encouraged to Leave Wounded Comrades to Die

In video recently posted online, a group of Russian soldiers stationed in Ukraine claim military commanders want them to leave their wounded comrades to die on the battlefield.

The video was first posted on Telegram before Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's Interior Ministry, shared the clip with English subtitles on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday. Newsweek could not independently verify the video, and an email was sent to the Russian Ministry of Defense on Friday for comment.

During the video, the troops go into detail about the harsh conditions they've faced on the battlefields of Ukraine, including what they said were especially challenging circumstances on the islands of the Dnieper River.

Areas along the Dnieper have seen intense fighting in recent weeks following Kyiv's announcement last month that its forces had established a beachhead on the eastern bank. Since that important strategy victory, the opposing militaries have fought practically non-stop around the village of Krynky in the Kherson Oblast.

"More Russian soldiers revealed details of life on the front line in the Kherson direction," Gerashchenko wrote in the caption of the video he posted on Friday. "The command prefers to leave the wounded to rot rather than issue evacuation orders. No officers are at the positions, the soldiers are sent to slaughter."

In the video, a group of soldiers sit close together in cramped quarters talking about how they haven't been paid for their military service. As a result, they said they're forced to buy their own food and gasoline.

The soldiers alleged their commanders do not care enough about wounded troops to provide supplies for treatment or transportation to collect the fallen men, leaving the members of the unit to take matters into their own hands.

One soldier said he treats "people with medicine at my own expense."

"We take out the wounded from under mortar fire and other shooting fights on personal transport," another soldier said, according to Gerashchenko's translation. "Personal transportation is fueled with our own money,"

The second troop added: "That is, we either collect money from the brigade for gasoline and oil among other things, or we get money from our wives, as we have no money and our salaries do not come. So we're simply taking the last of the money from home."

The first soldier also said soldiers stationed on islands in the Dnieper River have had to resort to drinking river water to survive and "eat whatever they find under their feet."

He then described how some troops had found a can of stewed meat, which they mixed with water from the Dnieper. They shared the diluted stewed meat to "not to starve to death."

Discussing their own conditions, the first speaker said his unit is "abandoned" and "our command provides false information."

The troops complained that they didn't even have evidence that they are serving in Ukraine. One of the soldiers held a military document up to the camera that showed a blank page where he said information should be displayed about his service.

The clip posted by Gerashchenko ends with another one of the soldiers saying their wives get hung up on if they call government officials about their husbands.

"I understand that the hotlines are already overheated, the phones are melting," the soldier said. "But it isn't an answer. Answering like that is a scumbag thing to do."

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