Do the Russians have the choice to refuse to fight once at the front? Obviously not. At least, that’s what Sergei (not his real name) explained when discussing the situation of his son Stas (not his real name) at the BBC.
“No information was given regarding the war. They were to advance to the front, but no one knew what awaited them,” begins the father with our confreres. If he was at the front, it was a choice on the part of Stas. He felt it was his duty to “do what is right“.
Sergei believes that his son was not prepared for such a war. According to him, this confrontation does not really affect Stas. “This is not our war. And this is not a war of liberation”, he continued. After a while, Stas understands that he has no place at the front. “He refused to fight, which is not easy there. He put his refusal in writing along with several others. These soldiers had their weapons taken away and were placed under surveillance.”
Several times the father tried to go to the front line to try to obtain the release of his son. To achieve his ends, he moved heaven and earth with military and political leaders. Several months later, her son returned to Russia.
His story is uplifting. “First they beat him. Then they took him outside as if they were going to kill him. He was lying on the floor and he had to count to 10. He refused. So they hit him on the head with a gun. His face was covered in blood.”
Fortunately, a man will finally get Stas out of his ordeal. “They took him to a room and told him: either you follow us or we kill you. Eventually someone came to tell him he was going to work on the reserve.”
Back with his family, Sergei assures us that this episode brought him closer to his son. “Today, we are on the same wavelength. He confessed to me that he would never have believed that his own country would treat him this way. People here don’t understand how in danger we are. Not from the opposing side. But from our own side”he concluded.
The BBC also collected the testimony of a mother of a lieutenant who also refused to fight. “He told me he refused to lead his men to certain death”, explained Oxana. “With his position, he understood that his team would not come out alive. They sent my son to a detention center. Then, I received a message which told me that he was missing like four other officers. We haven’t heard from him for five months. Then they explained that the building where he was was bombed. Today, his official status is that he “disappeared in action”. That does not make sense. The way my son was treated was not only illegal, it was inhumane.”
Putin denies and assures that it is “Fake News”
The Kremlin has already reacted to these various testimonies. For Vladimir Putin, everything is absolutely false. “We have no camps or incarceration facilities for Russian soldiers”, explained the president in December. “We have no problem with soldiers leaving combat positions. When you are bombarded, anyone would react that way. But following a certain period of adaptation, our men are fighting brilliantly.”
