The Russian military talked about looting and murders in Ukraine

A Russian who fought in Ukraine, the transcript of the telephone conversation was published by The New York Times in September of last year, confirmed in a conversation with “Mediazona” that he witnessed murders and looting by the Russian military.

A soldier from Rubtsovsk named Sergey (his last name is withheld) in conversations with relatives, the transcript of which was published in the New York Times, called the war in Ukraine “the dumbest decision of our state” and said that it was “not necessary.” In a conversation with Mediazona, he said that after a year his opinion has not changed: “This is a criminal war. I had a very positive attitude towards Ukraine and immediately understood that this deadly war was initiated by Putin.”

Sergey serves in the army under contract. According to him, the beginning of the war and the sending to the front came as a complete surprise to him. In conversations published by the New York Times with his girlfriend, which took place at the beginning of March last year, Sergey talks about cases of looting by the Russian military in Ukraine, as well as the murder of three civilians: “If we let them go, they can surrender our positions. Well, decided to simply shoot them in the forest,” he explained. “Mediazone” Sergey said that he himself did not participate in the murders: “I personally did not kill anyone with a machine gun, I did not personally take civilians prisoner, this was done by our security.” According to him, he does not know whether those shot were civilians. He also confirmed that the military was engaged in stealing household appliances (he himself said in a telephone conversation that he became the owner of a vacuum cleaner), but he personally did not send it to Rubtsovsk. He still serves in the army, but no longer in Ukraine.

Last September, the New York Times published wiretapping of Russian paratroopers and Russian Guardsmen in Ukraine, in which the soldiers openly talked about looting and killing civilians, as well as reviled the command and the war itself. Mediazona identified 13 servicemen and called them. As the publication notes, all these people returned from Ukraine alive. The military and their relatives, with whom “Mediazona” spoke, heard about the New York Times material for the first time. Many of them refused to answer the publication’s questions. Those with whom “Mediazone” was able to speak confirmed that they were in Ukraine, but essentially did not comment on the New York Times publication. One of them doubted that his conversation was really recorded, and stated that he was not a witness to a war criminal.

Tens of thousands of cases of alleged war crimes are now being investigated in Ukraine. Military personnel whose conversations were wiretapped by the New York Times were in Kyiv region in March of last year, where Ukrainian investigative bodies recorded numerous cases of killing civilians and looting.