Dirty, cold and hardly anything to eat – this is what everyday life looks like for many Russians who have been mobilized by force. But apparently not everyone has to endure such adverse conditions. For some troops there is more comfort. Among them are reportedly the soldiers of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, 46.
These would be allowed to stay in hotels, while other soldiers would have to live in barracks or tents. This tells the wife of a Russian soldier to the independent Telegram portal We can explain. Her husband said the same thing to a military psychologist who asked him about his attitude to the war.
“My husband is outspoken and foolish. He has set out his position on this entire war. That the local population is against the occupation, that the Kadyrovites and other elite units live in hotels, while ordinary soldiers live in barracks, in appalling conditions, without supplies and food,” says the wife.
“You cannot live long in such caves”
On Thursday, another news portal published a video of mobilized people from Chelyabinsk stationed near Svatove in the Luhansk region. The soldiers complain about the cold and dampness and scold their superiors. “It’s dripping from the ceiling and we had to put on a foil so that we at least wake up dry,” says the soldier. “It’s clear why the soldiers are leaving. You can’t live long in a hole like that.”
Kawkas Realii reported two months ago that the Kadyrovites, as Kadyrov’s troops are called, are going to enjoy a special status and that is why there are quarrels with regular Russian soldiers. “Sometimes there are quarrels over food, sometimes over property,” the portal quoted a source close to the military as saying.
Oleg Orlov, activist of the now banned and closed human rights organization Memorial, also attributes the conflicts between the Kadyrovites and regular troops to the unequal distribution of equipment. “They are better armed than other units.” There is jealousy and aversion that turn into hatred.
Hardly at the front
According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the Chechens are almost never in the front line, but much more in the background. Their job should be to act as blockading troops, holding back deserters who don’t want to die as “cannon fodder” in the front row and shooting them if necessary.
Ukrainian intelligence also reported that the Kadyrovites killed more than a dozen Russian wounded in the Kiev region in March so as not to worry about their evacuation. This information cannot be independently verified.
FSB targets disaffected soldiers
Complaints about Kadyrovites and the general indignation about the war apparently created even more problems for the soldier, who had to trot to a psychologist. Because, as his wife told him, after his return from Ukraine he was summoned to the office of the Russian FSB news service.
According to the report, he was not the only one the FSB knew about. Other disgruntled military personnel are also being summoned for questioning.
A new FSB decision came into effect in December. According to the document, “for security reasons” practically no information about the army, including the “moral-psychological climate in the troops”, the state of military supplies and their needs, is allowed to be passed on.