Deserted Storm-Z grenade launcher tells of “hell” and “f…t” (VIDEO)

The Russian Volunteer Corps, a unit of Russian nationalists fighting on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, announced the end of the hot phase of the operation in the Belgorod Region. They identified the objectives as protecting the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and named the disruption of plans for an offensive timed to coincide with the elections and inauguration as the main consequence. The raid in the border areas of the Belgorod and Kursk Regions lasted almost four weeks. On the same day, Russian contract soldier Anton, who was fighting off attacks by the RVC, deserted from his unit in the Belgorod Region.

Before that, he fought in the Kupyansk direction for two months – from the beginning of October to the end of November – as part of “Storm Z”. He was sent there “for his big mouth” – during his training in the Kursk region, he was very indignant regarding the lack of normal equipment.

“Everything is fucked up there. They should have provided us with the basics. At least one set of clothes. While they were registering us, while they were taking us to the clothing warehouse… And all the workers there were completely shabby. The officers were 50/50, but the senior staff was just short of Yeltsin’s level. All the clothes were from the 60s and didn’t fit. Extortions started right away. 500 rubles here, 500 rubles there. We chipped in two or three thousand for spare parts for the equipment. They made up some stupid story, like because our reserve battalion was stationed in Kaliningrad, there were problems with delivering spare parts here, so we had to chip in for them ourselves. What kind of nonsense is this, guys?” Anton is indignant.

Anton managed to get the required items by swearing. Among them were the “Kolpak-20” – a re-purposed Soviet helmet from the 1960s, a uniform ten sizes too big, and combat boots – four sizes too big. In the end, he bought the equipment at his own expense. Resellers came to the unit and sold everything they needed, according to Anton, at “plus or minus market prices.” But at the local “chipka” in the Kursk region, a liter of milk cost 800 rubles, and the saleswoman from there drove around the village in a “Gelika.” Food had to be ordered from the city – by the second week, absolutely everyone was poisoned by the food from the unit, says Anton.

Of the six hundred people in the unit, forty survived following two months of assaults. Of the six hundred people in his unit, forty survived following two months of assaults. “I spent two months in that f…k near Kupyansk. It was just some kind of extermination. From one company, 5-6 people return alive. All the equipment was also fucked up. By the end, they simply mixed us with the prisoners and simply drove, drove, drove. How I survived is a good question. I was just a grenade launcher, not an assault aircraft, I did not go in. We worked from closed positions. Direct fire is not an option in these fields,” Anton recalls.

Anton calls the whole process of assaults “push-pull”. According to him, in an ideal case, an assault occurs in several stages. First, the artillery processes the terrain, then the infantry storms the positions, followed by a fortification group, and then by evacuation and supply groups, which must carry out the wounded and dead and deliver ammunition, water and food. But as a rule, they all mix up at the front, and the infantry often scatters on the approaches to the enemy positions.

“The composition of the assault squad varies. It depends on how many people are added to the prisoners. On average, from 90 to 120 people. Sometimes they bring equipment. We go to storm a forest belt. In some places there are dugouts and everything is prepared, in other places everything is hastily. If you end up in the “Storm” infantry, you are screwed. In 9 cases out of 10, the infantry falls apart on the approach. The group approaches regarding two hundred meters, and then it is covered. In the case I am talking regarding, these were “cassettes”. There are no experienced people in the infantry, it scatters. If a person survives, he does not go any further, he begins to panic and become hysterical. He would rather go to the disciplinary battalion,” says Anton.

According to him, many refused to go there once more following the first assault and preferred to go to Zaitsevo, a village in the Luhansk region where there is an illegal place where military police hold refuseniks and guilty soldiers. Many, according to Anton, even liked it there, because they were kept in former barracks. Others only said the words “hell” and “f…t”.

The authorities hide the losses in every possible way, recording the soldiers who did not return from the battlefield as “five hundredths”, says Anton. In war, five hundredths are those who ran away or refused to take part in combat.

“The losses were just insane, I lost count. In the three kilometers that were eventually given back to the Ukrainians, they killed 5-6 companies. The Ukrainian National Guard simply came in and finished off the wounded, and then dug everything up with tanks. Our methodology for calculating losses is also interesting – if a person is missing for 2-3 weeks, then let’s be realistic, he was most likely taken apart for spare parts or buried. But they are listed as five-hundredths. The command will get into trouble for the excessive expenditure of personnel, so they are listed as five-hundredths. The regiment command does not want unnecessary attention,” Anton explains.