this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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In audio intercepts from the front lines in Ukraine, Russian soldiers speak in shorthand of 200s to mean dead, 300s to mean wounded. The urge to flee has become common enough that they also talk of 500s — people who refuse to fight.

As the war grinds into its second winter, a growing number of Russian soldiers want out, as suggested in secret recordings obtained by The Associated Press of Russian soldiers calling home from the battlefields of the Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions in Ukraine.

The calls offer a rare glimpse of the war as it looked through Russian eyes — a point of view that seldom makes its way into Western media, largely because Russia has made it a crime to speak honestly about the conflict in Ukraine. They also show clearly how the war has progressed, from the professional soldiers who initially powered Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion to men from all walks of life compelled to serve in grueling conditions.

“There’s no f------ ‘dying the death of the brave’ here,” one soldier told his brother from the front in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. “You just die like a f------ earthworm.”

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[–] [email protected] 97 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

We need to be careful extrapolating this to general trends, because the ones doing the intercepting (likely the SBU/Ukrainian intelligence) decide what to release. This is not a random sample.

I have no reason to doubt the intercepts are real, but I do wonder about the content of all the other intercepts that are not released.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

no you're right, i'm sure there are places where the Russian soldiers are having a great time and not dying like dogs

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a general enough trend that they needed to create a special code for the phenomenon.

[–] c0mbatbag3l 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm sure they had the code already, the fact that the US has "section 8" doesn't mean they're all going crazy.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Seems like every generation has to learn the Old Lie again and again.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est

[–] interceder270 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can't help but think most soldiers realize it's a load of bullshit when they're choking on their own blood.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (17 children)

Soldiers realize it well before then. The VFW is a club that hopes it withers away from lack of new members.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Thank you for sharing this. I don't read much poetry, much less in German. But this kept me on the edge of my seat.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Jesus Christ. The first one was beautiful and terrible. This was just naked horror (though part of that was that I’m not a native German speaker, so phrases like “blood-shod” in the first poem might have flown over my head in the second one), but I think it might be more effective for it. I also like that it addresses the populace, more than the politicians/potential soldiers.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That was a tough read in both ways.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Russia must be a wonderful place to wake up in the morning.. what an amazingly joyful, wonderful place it must be.. that must be why so many intelligent people have fled for the nearest border..

Russia, the land of earthworms

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I see nothing has changed then since early 2022.

[–] nucleative 14 points 1 year ago

If this was obtained and released by Ukraine, it is a type of propaganda. It might be true, but it's definitely designed to further erode the spirit of any Russian listener and bolster the Ukrainian side.

Here's Vietnam propaganda trying to get US soldiers to give up: https://people.duke.edu/~ng46/collections/propaganda/vietnam-to-us/LEAFLET%20North%20Vietnam%20Whats%20in%20Washingtons%20War%201%20600h.jpg

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] afraid_of_zombies 2 points 1 year ago

I couldn't finish that book, way too depressing. Also I kept wanting to scream at all those kids to just go home and stop fighting over fucking nothing.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"It's war, no one's happy. If those same spies were in our camps..."

Lord Tywin Lannister

But seriously, yes, I'm sure they have low morale. But it's frontline peer conflict. I'm sure the GRU has plenty of intercepted calls from Ukrainian conscripts saying and feeling very similarly.

Maybe that can't be extrapolated across the board for the UA, but certainly enough for a similar propaganda/psyop release.

[–] kescusay 29 points 1 year ago (20 children)

Unlikely. The Ukrainians are literally fighting for their homes and their lives. While I'm sure they're sick of warfare, it doesn't follow that their morale would at all be similar.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

An army can have good overall morale, and still have frontline soldiers complaining on the phone, especially conscripts.

That's my point. Selective release of intercepted calls of soldiers complaining, or otherwise expressing negative feelings isn't unique to armies with poor morale.

The Ukrainians are still humans. They aren't zealots, or robots. Humans have complex feelings, and they communicate those feelings, sometimes in ways that can be intercepted by enemy surveillance.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Do any soldiers want in? I bet both sides are tired

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Andrei’s mom knows what to say to reporters to protect her son, I hope.

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