A rebel Russian commander allegedly turned a gun on himself to dodge the war in Ukraine, audio of an intercepted military conversation appears to confirm.
A soldier told his mother in the call that his leader shot himself in the leg to get out of the conflict. The recordings have now been published by the Ukrainian defence ministry’s Main Intelligence Directory.
Approximately 40,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, captured or reported missing since the devastating war began.
The man, identified only as Nikita and who also says he also wants out, can be heard complaining about the invasion and his commander's apparent refusal to continue.
“This Ukraine war does not interest me at all, I need to come back and quit,” he could be heard saying, according to a translation by Business Insider and reported by The Independent.
“Mom, the commander of my battery of the second platoon shot himself in the leg to get out of here, in the very beginning! What are we even talking about here? He served in Chechnya.”
The woman then asks the man who will defend Russia should the West advance.
“Who, tell me? They will just kill us all, there will be a fourth world war and Russia will lose in it," he went on.
“Well then maybe Putin will think twice.”
The publication confirmed it has not been able to verify the veracity of the phone call.
But it is not only intercepted conversation that has been widely reported recently.
In another call, the Daily Beast reported on Friday that the wife of a soldier told her husband to “fall off a tank” to avoid taking any further part in the war.
“There’s no way out,” she said, according to recordings released by Ukrainian intelligence.
“Otherwise you will be there until September. They will not swap you out, because everyone is refusing.”
The soldier responded: “Well, clearly, what kind of stupid f*** would come here?”
“You just don’t need to shoot yourself in the leg, because who the f*** knows how that would end.
“I don’t f*****g know! Because you’d be able to go home straight from the hospital.”
Last week, The Guardian reported a furious soldier of an elite Russian army brigade refused to accept a second deployment to Ukraine.
“Many of us simply did not want to go back,” Dmitri, a member of the unit who asked not to be identified, said.
“I want to return to my family — and not in a casket.”
