Tapped Calls Catch Russian Troops Plotting Fake Marriages to Ditch War
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After more than 100 days of Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, Russian troops have now been caught trying to arrange sham marriages to get out of the war, while others say they haven’t even been sent water to survive as the temperatures rise.
Ukraine’s Security Service on Tuesday released what it said was an intercepted phone call between a Russian soldier and his friend.
The man identified as a soldier can be heard reporting that a mutual acquaintance who’d tried to abandon the fight was not allowed to, and that the only way out now is to “either be wounded or killed or [for] an official withdrawal.”
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But, he says, he tried unsuccessfully to find a new way out.
“I already fucking told one of my [female] friends, ‘Fuck, go submit an application to [the marriage registration office].’ I’ll fucking tell them about it here. Shit, they said, no fucking way, that’s not an option.”
“Everyone here is trying any possible way [to get out] … but there’s no way,” he said.
The creative new attempt to ditch Putin’s war—after other troops have reportedly been caught sabotaging their equipment or even deliberately wounding themselves to get sent home—comes as the rising June temperatures present Russian troops with even more challenges.
More than three months after Moscow tried but failed to seize Ukraine in what the Kremlin apparently thought would take only a few days, some Russian soldiers are reportedly still wearing uniforms meant for cold weather—and now they’ve run out of water.
That’s according to another intercept shared by Ukrainian intelligence Tuesday, in which a man identified as a Russian soldier says “the water supply has stopped.”
“We’re sitting here without water. It’s been hot lately. Now there’s the heat and the guys are also sitting in shock. Morally depressed,” he said, adding that the troops were still wearing the same uniforms they wore in the cold weather.
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It was not immediately clear where the purported soldier was based. But amid the plunging morale, some troops have reportedly devised plans to go AWOL.
A man identified as a Russian soldier by the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry was caught in a phone call telling a female relative back home that “most” of the men in his unit have refused to fight and are “trying to dash away themselves across the Russian border.”
“Right now there are 10 people getting a [truck] ready… If there’s any bullshit [they will immediately] hop in the [truck] and head towards Belgorod, they already got a canister there of diesel fuel and put it in the cargo area. I already talked to them and, if anything, they’ll grab me on the way and I’ll hit the road with them,” he said.
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