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MOSCOW/DONETSK | BY MARIA TSVETKOVA
Some
Russian soldiers are quitting the army because of the conflict in Ukraine,
several soldiers and human rights activists have told Reuters. Their accounts
call into question the Kremlin's continued assertions that no Russian soldiers
have been sent to Ukraine, and that any Russians fighting alongside rebels
there are volunteers.
Evidence for Russians fighting in
Ukraine – Russian army equipment found in the country, testimony from soldiers'
families and from Ukrainians who say they were captured by Russian paratroopers
– is abundant. Associates of Boris Nemtsov, a prominent Kremlin critic killed
in February, will soon publish a report which they say will contain new
evidence of the Russian military presence in Ukraine.
Until now, however, it has been extremely rare to find
Russian soldiers who have fought there and are willing to talk. It is even
rarer to find soldiers who have quit the army. Five soldiers who recently quit,
including two who said they left rather than serve in Ukraine, have told
Reuters of their experiences.
One of the five, from Moscow, said he was sent on
exercises in southern Russia last year but ended up going into Ukraine in an
armored convoy.
"After we crossed the border, a lieutenant
colonel said we could be sent to jail if we didn't fulfil orders. Some soldiers
refused to stay there," said the soldier, who served with the elite
Russian Kantemirovskaya tank division. He gave Reuters his full name but spoke
on condition of anonymity, saying he feared reprisals.
He said he knew two soldiers who refused to stay.
"They were taken somewhere. The lieutenant colonel said criminal cases
were opened against them but in reality – we called them afterwards – they were
at home. They just quit."
Russia's President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied
that Moscow has sent any military forces to help rebels in eastern Ukraine,
where clashes and casualties persist despite a ceasefire struck in February.
Putin's spokesman has derided such allegations by NATO, Western governments and
Kiev. Officials say that any Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine are
"volunteers," helping the rebels of their own free will.
The former Russian soldiers who spoke to Reuters, as
well as human rights activists, said some soldiers were fearful of being sent
to Ukraine, were pressured into going, or disgruntled at the way they were
treated after fighting there.
The former tank soldier from Moscow said he would not
have gone to Ukraine voluntarily. "No, what for? That's not our war. If
our troops were officially there it would be a different story."
He said he had been sent to fight in Ukraine last
summer and returned to Russia in September when the first peace talks took
place. His crew operated a modernized Russian T-72B3 tank, he said.
"(Back in Russia) we were lined up and told that
everyone would get a daily allowance, extras for fighting and medals," he
said. But he said that they did not get the extras they expected. "We
decided to quit. There were 14 of us."
The names of nine soldiers who quit the
Kantemirovskaya division are mentioned in an exchange of letters between Viktor
Miskovets, the head of the human resources department of Russia's Western
Military District, and Valentina Melnikova, who runs the Alliance of Soldiers'
Mothers Committees, a group based in Moscow.
In the letters, seen by Reuters, human rights workers
asked Miskovets to approve the soldiers' resignations – which one soldier told
Reuters the military had been unwilling to do. The letters do not mention
service in Ukraine.
The soldiers left the service on Dec. 12, according to
a letter signed by Miskovets. He and his deputy did not answer calls.
Three soldiers from the list, contacted by Reuters,
confirmed they had quit the service recently but declined to discuss Ukraine.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence declined to
comment on soldiers quitting the tank unit or being sent to Ukraine.
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