Moral on the ground – “A damn hell”: Russian phone calls tapped

“This isn’t war, this is fucking hell,” one man summed it up in a conversation with a friend back home. Of his unit, originally 240 men, only 94 remain. The soldier, who has been deployed for two months, also complains about the poor supply situation. “There are no supplies, we live like damn dogs in dens,” he says. He and his comrades sat in the basement of a destroyed house for two days, eating only raw potatoes. He also reports looting. His interlocutor then instructs him not to say too much on the phone.

The calls were intercepted and released by the Military Intelligence Service of Ukraine (HUR). The Twitter account @wartranslated, which regularly translates war-related videos, audio and chat messages into English, shared the footage (see tweet below). They do not paint an overall picture, but provide insight into the fate of individuals.

Wounded – 1000 kilometers from the front
A man from the Russian Republic of Mordovia deployed to Ukraine tells a woman on the phone that there are already casualties at a recently mobilized unit in Ulyanovsk – more than 1,000 kilometers from the front lines. “They haven’t even been to Ukraine yet and they have 30 wounded,” he said. Because there men would have drunk or had frostbite due to too much alcohol consumption.

Another soldier is shocked by the number of dead and wounded in his unit. Due to the lack of equipment, one can currently only hold out under Ukrainian artillery fire. They are waiting for new vehicles because the old ones have been destroyed by the Ukrainians.

Called despite surgery
According to a woman whose phone call to a soldier was tapped, men with military experience continue to be called up despite the official end of mobilization. A Russian was called up ten days after he had surgery. The husband of an acquaintance was also called up despite his illness, she says. “If he’s not dead, he’s going,” the woman said.

There are already reports of a possible new wave of mobilization in Russia that could start soon. A woman talks about rumors of a new wave of mobilization in February. She also reports that eight soldiers deserted. “They automatically stopped machine guns as far as Moscow Oblast and then surrendered to the police,” the woman said in the phone call.

The military often express their wish to return home over the telephone. The footage underscores the British Ministry of Defense’s assessment that Moscow will find it difficult to implement the planned expansion of its army. “Russia will most likely have difficulty finding personnel and equipment for the planned expansion,” the defense ministry said in its daily intelligence briefing in London on Sunday. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu recently announced, among other things, that he intends to increase the number of troops from 1.15 to 1.5 million.

“All attempts failed”
Meanwhile, Russia has made progress in fighting in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region for a second day in a row, according to the defense ministry in Moscow. Russian troops would improve their position. On the other hand, according to the ministry, losses have been incurred and military equipment has also been destroyed, including howitzers and two US-made HIMARS missiles. Ukraine said on Saturday that the Russian claims were exaggerated. Yevhen Yerin, a military spokesman in Zaporizhia, told Ukrainian TV station Suspilne: “At the moment they have not captured anything. All their attempts were repulsed and the enemy suffered losses.”