Russian forces in Ukraine shoot themselves to avoid war: book

• A Russian paratrooper who fought in Ukraine wrote a 141-page diary of his time there.
• Pavel Filatev described how the soldiers were so exhausted that they wounded themselves in order to leave.
• Filatev, who has since fled Russia, He told the Guardian newspaper He couldn’t “stay calm any longer”.

A Russian paratrooper who fought in Ukraine said troops deliberately shot themselves in the leg to escape the war and receive $50,000 in compensation.

Pavel Filiev, 33 years old Publishing a 141-page diary He explains his experience on the front lines of the Ukraine war on the Russian social media platform VKontakte two weeks ago, The Guardian newspaper reported. See the notes.

Notes entitled “ZOV” on the Russian name pro-war symbol It is the most detailed account of a Russian soldier fighting in Ukraine to date.

He describes how some Russian soldiers face so much chaos, hunger, and destruction that they look for any way out.

“Someone started shooting in the limbs … to get 3 million rubles and get out of this hell,” Filativ wrote in his memoirs.

Reverse his account similar Reports From New York Post And the MailOnline Earlier this year, who said Russian soldiers were telling family members that their comrades had shot themselves in the leg in order to go home.

A Reuters report was published in July He confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had announced that injured soldiers could claim compensation of 3 million rubles, equivalent to what the average Russian worker earns in four years.

Filatev was a member of the 56th Guards Air Assault Regiment based in CrimeaThe memos said the peninsula was captured by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. The Guardian reported that paratroopers are widely considered to be the elite of the Russian army.

The Guardian reports that he was dispatched to mainland Ukraine on February 24, the first day of the Russian invasion, and fought in the cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv before being wounded and evacuated from the front lines with an eye infection in early July.

“It took weeks for me to realize that there was absolutely no war on Russian soil, that we had just attacked Ukraine,” he told the Guardian.

In his memoirs, Filatev also described Russian forces as “savages” who stole valuables from Ukraine’s homes because they were “more than their salaries”.

He wrote: “Like savages, we ate everything there: oats, porridge, jam, honey, coffee … We did not care about anything, we were already pushed to the limit.” “What a wild state you can push people into by not thinking about the fact that they need to sleep, eat, and wash.”

Insider has not been able to independently verify all the details of Filatif’s story.

The Guardian reported that Filatiev fled Russia last week via an unknown route, and it is unclear where he is currently residing.

He told the Guardian he wrote the memoirs because he felt he “couldn’t be silent any longer”.

“I’m not afraid to fight in a war. But I need to feel fair, to understand that what I’m doing is right,” Filativ told the Guardian. “And I think that all of this failed not only because the government stole everything, but because we, the Russians, don’t feel like what we’re doing is right.”

The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to an Insider’s request for comment.