Russian Soldiers Forced To Buy Own Warm Uniforms; Left To Wander In Woods, Families Reveal

Mobilized Russian conscripts deployed in the war in Ukraine were forced to spend their own money to buy their own military gear after the army failed to give them adequate equipment, according to a report.

Speaking in a phone interview with The Washington Post, Yana, a transport worker from St. Petersburg, said her husband was forced to buy his own gear, including warm clothing and boots to use in the war. In addition, Yana said her husband was deployed to Ukraine despite having very little training.

“They do not have any orders and they do not have any tasks,” she told The Post. “I spoke to my husband yesterday and he said that they have no clue what to do. They were just abandoned and they have lost all trust, all faith in the authorities.”

Yana’s account was not the only one that detailed the harrowing experiences of mobilized Russian soldiers in Ukraine. Other relatives of the soldiers also told accounts similar to Yana’s, with some saying their loved ones were left to wander in the woods for days due to a lack of clear orders from command, according to the outlet.

In a joint video appeal shared by independent Russian media Vyorstka, the families of other mobilized men said their loved ones were left to face at least three days of shelling after their commanders “ran away.”

Due to the lack of command, several dozen mobilized soldiers have already requested to be withdrawn from the war. Their appeals, however, were ignored by the Russian military.

“We wrote applications. We wrote reports. We did everything, but no one listens to us. Nobody wants to hear us,” Konstantin Voropayev, a soldier, said in a video shared on YouTube.

Russia’s military death toll in the war continues to mount, and as of Sunday, it lost a total of 84,210 military personnel, including 330 deaths over the past day. Additionally, Russia also lost 2,886 tanks, 5,817 combat armored machines, 1,868 artillery systems and 4,371 vehicles and fuel tanks since February, as per estimates from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

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