Kathrine Frich
Three Russian soldiers who escaped the front tell The Times they saw no path to survival except injury, flight or silence.
Their testimonies, shared from undisclosed locations, depict an army stretched by losses, internal brutality and fear imposed from within as much as from Ukrainian fire.
A modern form of slavery
One of them, Nikolai, a 34-year-old lawyer from Russia’s far east, said financial hardship pushed him into enlistment early this year.
His firm collapsed after sanctions cut off international work, leaving him desperate.
Believing predictions that political changes abroad might end the conflict, he signed a contract. Only later, he told The Times, did he grasp the consequences.
“Once you sign a contract, you can’t leave,” he said. “It’s like a modern form of slavery.”
Training lasted barely ten days before he was moved through Rostov to a camp in Mariupol.
There, he watched soldiers stripped of phones and papers and learned escape was virtually impossible.
Paths strewn with corpses
When he reached the front in May, he said his assault unit faced constant drone strikes and mines.
Bodies lay uncollected along the paths. “You walk along paths strewn with corpses,” he recalled. “It was summer, so the smell of corpses was everywhere.”
Losses became routine. By late July, he estimated only five members of his original 45-man group remained.
As an advance order arrived, he realised he would rather injure himself than continue.
Older servicemen advised on which explosives would leave him alive. Shrapnel from RGD-5 grenades, one told him, tended to spare major arteries.
With that knowledge, he slipped away to a deserted house. The blast that tore into his arm allowed him to be evacuated.
“It was scary, but not that painful,” he said.
He later left Russia while on medical leave. “The Russian leadership is not at all ready to talk about peace,” he added. “The losses are simply enormous, monstrous.”
Crisis of faith
Anton, 27, also from the far east, had already completed naval service before choosing to enlist again in late 2023.
He said he followed his father’s example, calling him “the ultimate authority in my life.”
Assigned to air defence rather than an assault unit, he monitored drones and helicopters, carrying heavy loads and digging positions.
“I couldn’t stay home knowing that my comrades were there,” he said.
Gradually, his faith in the “operation” faltered.
When his unit occupied trenches left by Ukrainians, the icons and crosses he found there unsettled him.
Later, when a priest arrived to bless weapons, he questioned him about the morality of Russians and Ukrainians shooting at each other. The reply: “They are making the mistake, not you”. did not reassure him.
After his contract expired, he sought legal advice on how to leave the army permanently.
Courts threatened him with imprisonment for desertion, he said, and the final push came when plainclothes agents forced their way into his mother’s home.
He fled soon after. “People in the shelters simply rot,” he said.
Maps and manipulation
Alexander, 21, formerly a train conductor, described himself as opposing the war. Drafted last year, he served in a ceremonial unit before signing a contract he now calls “the worst and biggest mistake.”
Sent to a command post in Donetsk, he printed updated battlefield maps and watched drone footage of Ukrainian positions.
According to his account to The Times, he saw discrepancies between maps prepared for senior commanders and those used in the field.
When told to print one file ahead of a visit by General Gerasimov, he noticed the marked positions had shifted noticeably.
“It was a blatant lie,” he said.
Already shaken by the destruction he saw, he left Russia while on leave. Of diplomatic efforts, he said:
“I think they’re just theater. Putin wants blood. He wants to kill, to plunder. It’s an annihilation of the Russian population by its own president.”
For some, like Nikolai, guilt now overshadows relief.
“I have no excuse for myself,” he said. “I realize that I was involved and complicit in this great atrocity.”
Sources: The Times, Digi24
