Buryat professional soldiers fighting for Russia: those refusing to fight are sent to detention centre near Luhansk

KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO – SUNDAY, 17 JULY 2022, 20:31

Professional soldiers from Buryatia [a republic in eastern Siberia, part of the Russian Federation – ed.] who refused to fight in Ukraine have reported that their commanders were pressuring and threatening them.

Source: Seven Buryat professional soldiers in a commentary for Mediazona

Details: Alexandra Garmazhapova, head of the Free Buryatia Foundation, has submitted a recording of statements made by Buryat professional soldiers to Mediazona.

At the beginning of the recording, the soldiers introduce themselves, saying that their names are: Ilya Kaminsky, Aldar Dylykov, Vladimir Malkov, Andrey Martynov, Sergey Arsenov, Viktor Durnykh, and Nikolay Vasilyev. All of them served in military unit No. 32364 in Buryatia. After a few months of the war in Ukraine, they submitted reports refusing to continue to take part in it.

"All of us have written reports. Our commanders responded negatively, they began to threaten us…They threatened us because of our reports and said that none of us will make it to our point of permanent deployment. Even the [Russian-appointed] head of the military investigative department for Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson oblasts came. We were told that an assault unit had been created near Luhansk and that after being sent to pre-trial detention centre No.1 everyone will be sent there [to join the assault unit – ed.]," one of the soldiers said.

He also explained that groups of between 8 and 10 soldiers are taken to a military command post, where they are locked up for three to four days in a garage and only given food once a day. They are then sent to a pre-trial detention centre near Luhansk, which the Russians have created in the premises of a former rehabilitation centre.

The soldier also said that it was the deputy commander for military political issues who issued an order to send the soldiers [who refuse to take part in the combat action in Ukraine – ed.] to the detention centre. The head of the military investigative department, meanwhile, forced the conscientious objectors to write explanatory notes and statements asserting their readiness to take further part in combat.

"No one has accepted our reports, no one has signed them, they just tore them up and made us write all sorts of explanatory notes instead. To this day, no one has looked at our reports, though a week and a half has already passed since the first one had been submitted. Nothing has happened," the soldiers said.

The mother of one of the soldiers who was serving in Buryatia and wrote a report refusing to take part in hostilities after four months of the war in Ukraine told Mediazona that her son, who has suffered two contusions, has not been allowed to resign. On Sunday [17 July - ed.], he was taken to the prosecutor’s office.

Mediazona’s source said she was aware of a total of 77 reports submitted by soldiers who were serving in Buryatia, in which the soldiers refused to continue to take part in hostilities. She said that one of the reasons for these mass refusals might be the fact that "there is no longer a single tank in the brigade" while the Ukrainian soldiers have "rocket launchers and howitzers". "The brigade was left to die," as the soldier’s mother said. Ilya Kaminsky’s mother described the situation in similar terms.

Earlier, the Free Buryatia Foundation reported that around 150 professional soldiers who had refused to continue fighting in Ukraine have returned to Russia. Garmazhapova said that those soldiers terminated their contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defence back in June. However, after 15 of the soldiers’ wives appealed to Aleksey Tsydenov, acting Head of the Republic of Buryatia, to return their husbands to Buryatia, "the bus with the men, which was taking them home, was turned around."

Earlier: On 28 June, the wives of the servicemen who had been said to be taking part in military "training" in Ukraine recorded a video address to the head of the Republic of Buryatia, asking for their husbands to be allowed to return home.