The 24-year-old was stationed at a military base in Russia near the border with Ukraine in February. On the morning of February 24, the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion, shelling landed within two miles from his location and military aircraft in the sky appeared to be heading to Ukraine, The Journal reported. When Sakhibgareev saw a headline on Telegram that said “Russia Invades Ukraine” he panicked and left the base.
He’s one of hundreds of Russian soldiers who have deserted or refused to fight since the war in Ukraine began, according to the report published by The Journal on Wednesday. At least 115 Russian national guardsmen said they were fired after refusing to fight, according to The Guardian.
After months of setbacks, including getting pushed out of Kyiv and Kharkiv, Russian forces have made recent gains in the Donbas region after shifting their focus to eastern Ukraine. Analysts told Insider’s Bill Bostock the advances for Russia marked a reversal from earlier stages of the war, but that the momentum may not last long.
Sakhibgareev was eventually contacted by Russian military officials, who convinced him to come back but allowed him to instead go to a base that was further from battle, The Journal reported. Sakhibgareev’s lawyer, Almaz Nabiev, told the outlet the military could still decide to press charges against him for desertion.
Ukraine’s Muslim Crimea battalion yearns for lost homeland
Max Hunder June 1, 2022
YASNOHORODKA, Ukraine (Reuters) – Standing amid the charred remains of a roadside hotel on a major highway near Kyiv, Isa Akayev explained what drove him to build his Muslim volunteer unit and fight for Ukraine.
“I just want to return home, to Crimea,” said Akayev, 57, a gently-spoken father of 13 who sports a long greying beard and shaven head.
When Russia annexed his home region from Ukraine in 2014, Akayev moved to Kyiv and formed the Crimea battalion, a small unit dominated by Crimean Tatars, the Muslim Turkic group indigenous to the Black Sea peninsula.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, his unit’s 50 men took part in battles around the Kyiv region but are now seeking to be deployed to the southern front to fight in the Kherson region bordering Crimea.
Their eventual goal of recapturing Crimea looks harder than ever after much of the Kherson region fell under Russian control early in the war, pushing Ukrainian forces back more than 100 km (60 miles) from the peninsula.
But it is enough to rally the Tatars – and their Muslim Russian allies in the unit – behind the cause of Ukraine, which needs all the manpower it can muster as the war grinds towards its 100th day and Moscow’s forces make slow but steady progress. – In Ukraine’s Eastern Donbass region, Scroll back up to restore default view.
ANNEXATION
Many Tatars opposed Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, which had followed the overthrow of a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian president amid mass street protests.
Their suspicion of Moscow has deep roots. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the mass deportation of Crimea’s Tatars – Akayev’s grandparents among them – in 1944, accusing them of collaboration with Nazi Germany.
They were only allowed to return with their descendants in the 1980s – as Akayev did from Uzbekistan in 1989 – and many welcomed the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union as a liberation.
Fearing a new wave of repression under Moscow’s rule, Akayev moved to Kyiv in 2014, where he was initially rebuffed by Ukraine’s security forces.
“It was very difficult, many people didn’t trust Muslims, and especially Crimean Tatars. Everyone thought we would be the separatists, not someone else,” he said.
But when Russian-backed separatists took up arms against Ukraine in its eastern Donbas region in 2014, all that changed.
His group was allowed to register as a volunteer unit under Ukraine’s interior ministry and fought in the ensuing conflict, with three of its men being wounded. Last month they signed contracts to become a fully-fledged unit of Ukraine’s army.
Dozens of other volunteer battalions sprang up in 2014 and began helping Ukraine’s unprepared regular army to fight in the Donbas. They included two Chechen units, a Georgian one, and several with a right-wing nationalist ethos. Some have since disarmed while others have joined the regular army.
Russia has been scathing about such units. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on the eve of the war that providing shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles to former volunteer battalions was evidence of a “militaristic psychosis”.
A Ukrainian presidential envoy said in March that such volunteer battalions now numbered more than 100. Ukraine’s government celebrates them as heroes, celebrating their exploits on an annual volunteers’ day.
TATAR IDENTITY
Just over half of Akayev’s battalion are Crimean Tatars, who make up about 15% of Crimea’s population.
“The core (of the unit) is Crimean because they want to liberate their peninsula, but they don’t have a rule that it should only be Crimeans,” said Serhiy, a Ukrainian who converted to Islam in 2004 and is the unit’s imam.
The Crimean cause provides a focus for the unit, which includes a number of Russian citizens. Its few non-Muslim members are required to follow certain rules, including a ban on alcohol.
“The Crimean Tatars… suffered more under Russian occupation, and so they feel closer to us,” says Muaz, an ethnic Kabardian from Russia’s North Caucasus who joined the battalion a year ago.
A United Nations report in 2017 accused Russia of committing “grave” human rights violations in Crimea, including subjecting the Tatars to intimidation, house searches and detentions.
Moscow, which in 2016 banned the Mejlis, a body representing Crimean Tatars, rejected the report’s findings. It says a March 2014 referendum legitimised its “incorporation” of Crimea.
The Crimea battalion performed reconnaissance against Russian forces around Yasnohorodka, a village 25km west of Kyiv, and later in nearby Motyzhyn, Akayev said.
“The residents here were initially very scared when they saw us because they didn’t know who we were. We had to shout ‘we are Ukrainian’… then people started slowly coming out of their homes and they gave us tea.”
Nearby, the burnt-out hotel bears a special significance for Akayev.
“We wanted to buy this place, to build a Crimean Tatar school and a mosque here… It didn’t come to anything, and then this happened,” Akayev said, gesturing at the building’s charred remains which he said was the result of Russian shelling.
“I (still) dream about this project, but really I just want to return home to Crimea.”
Top Russian lawmaker makes ridiculous claim Russian troops aren’t really dying in Ukraine amid reports of staggering losses
John Haltiwanger – June 1, 2022
on April 13, 2022, a Russian soldier stands guard at the Luhansk power plant in the town of Shchastya.Alexander Nemenov/Getty Images
A top Russian lawmaker claimed that Russian soldiers have essentially stopped dying in Ukraine.
Russia has not provided an updated official death toll from the war in Ukraine since March.
Russia is estimated to have lost 15,000 troops since the war began in late February.
Russia is estimated to have lost as many as 15,000 soldiers, if not more, in the war in Ukraine so far. It is a staggering death toll by any standard, particularly given the conflict started just a few months ago in late February. But according to a top Russian lawmaker, its soldiers have essentially stopped dying in the war, even as the fighting rages on with no end in sight.
Andrey Kartapolov, head of Russia’s rubber-stamp parliament’s defense committee and former Russian military officer who previously served as the deputy defense minister, said on Wednesday that “we have practically ceased to lose people,” according to Moskovskij Komsomolets, a Moscow-based paper. “Currently, of course, there are wounded, but there are no such number of dead,” Kartapolov added, stating this is why the government had not provided an updated death toll in awhile.
The outlandish claim, which echoes Kremlin talking points that have been contradicted by a slew of other reports, reflects Moscow’s extraordinary efforts to hide the true scale of the Russian military’s losses in Ukraine from the Russian public.
According to the Russian government’s latest official numbers — which were released back in late March — 1,351 troops have been killed in Ukraine. Western intelligence agencies have placed the Russian death toll somewhere between 7,000 and 15,000. Ukraine’s official numbers put the Russian death toll as high as 30,000.
A recent report from the independent Russian website IStories that was based on an analysis of open source data found that over 3,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine. Similarly, an investigation from the BBC’s Russian Service published this week found that 3,052 Russian troops have died since the war began. Both reports underscored that the true Russian death toll is likely far higher, but these were the deaths that could be confirmed based on available information.
A fallen Russian soldier lying on the road on March 5, 2022 in Sytniaky, Ukraine.Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine has worked overtime to keep Russians in the dark on how poorly the war has gone.
Beyond statements from government officials, Russian state news constantly churns out bombastic claims on the Ukraine war, assuring Russians that the conflict is going well while reiterating the Kremlin’s baseless assertions that Russian troops are fighting neo-Nazis.
In reality, Russia has struggled to make major gains in its unprovoked war in Ukraine, failing to take the country’s two biggest cities — Kyiv and Kharkiv. The Russian military has made incremental progress in the east, where its focus turned after its unsuccessful campaign to seize the Ukrainian capital, but overall, top analysts widely agree that the war has been disastrous for Russia thus far.
Biden agrees to provide Ukraine with longer range missiles
Jeff Mason and Steve Holland – May 31, 2022
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden has agreed to provide Ukraine with advanced rocket systems that can strike with precision at long-range Russian targets as part of a $700 million weapons package expected to be unveiled on Wednesday.
The United States is providing Ukraine with high mobility artillery rocket systems that can accurately hit targets as far away as 80 km (50 miles) after Ukraine gave “assurances” they will not use the missiles to strike inside Russia, senior administration officials said.
In a New York Times op-ed published Tuesday, Biden said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will end through diplomacy but the United States must provide significant weapons and ammunition to give Ukraine the highest leverage at the negotiating table.
“That’s why I’ve decided that we will provide the Ukrainians with more advanced rocket systems and munitions that will enable them to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine,” Biden wrote.
The package also includes ammunition, counter fire radars, a number of air surveillance radars, additional Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as anti-armor weapons, officials said.
Ukrainian officials have been asking allies for longer-range missile systems that can fire a barrage of rockets hundreds of miles away, in the hopes of turning the tide in the three-month-long war.
Biden on Tuesday told reporters that “we’re not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that strike into Russia.”
He did not rule out providing any specific weapons system, but instead appeared to be placing conditions on how they could be used. Biden wants to help Ukraine defend itself but has been opposed to providing weapons that Ukraine could use to attack Russia.
Thousands of people have been killed in Ukraine and millions more displaced since the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, which Moscow calls a “special military operation” to “denazify” its neighbor. Ukraine and its Western allies call this a baseless pretext for a war to seize territory.
The West has been increasingly willing to give Ukraine longer-range weaponry, including M777 howitzers, as its force battle Russians with more success than intelligence officials had predicted.
But U.S. intelligence has also warned about growing risks, particularly given a mismatch between Russian President Vladimir Putin’s apparent ambitions and the performance of his military.
Ukraine has started receiving Harpoon anti-ship missiles from Denmark and self-propelled howitzers from the United States, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Saturday.
(This story refiles to add dropped word “includes” in the fifth paragraph)
(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Steve Holland and Jarrett Renshaw; editing by Grant McCool and Lincoln Feast.)
KYIV (Reuters) -Russian troops fought to take complete control of the eastern industrial city of Sievierodonetsk on Wednesday as the United States said it will provide Ukraine with advanced rockets to help it force Moscow to negotiate an end to the war.
President Joe Biden said the United States would provide Ukraine with more advanced rocket systems and munitions so it can “more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield”.
“We have moved quickly to send Ukraine a significant amount of weaponry and ammunition so it can fight on the battlefield and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table,” Biden wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times.
A senior Biden administration official said weaponry provided would include the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), which Ukraine’s armed forces chief said a month ago was “crucial” to counter Russian missile attacks.
Addressing concerns that such weapons could draw the United States into a direct conflict with Russia, senior administration officials said Ukraine gave assurances the missiles would not be used to strike inside Russia.
“These systems will be used by the Ukrainians to repel Russian advances on Ukrainian territory, but they will not be used on targets in Russian territory,” the U.S. official told reporters.
Shortly after the U.S. decision was announced, the Russian defence ministry said Russia’s nuclear forces were holding drills in the Ivanovo province, northeast of Moscow, the Interfax news agency reported.
Some 1,000 servicemen were exercising in intense manoeuvres using more than 100 vehicles including Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, it cited the ministry as saying.
There was no mention of the U.S. decision to supply new weapons in the Interfax report.
The latest U.S. pledge of weapons for Ukraine – on top of billions of dollars worth of equipment already provided including anti-aircraft missiles and drones – came as Russia pressed its assault to seize the eastern Donbas region, having abandoned its earlier thrust toward Kyiv from the north.
Russian troops have now taken control of most of the eastern industrial city of Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk, one of two provinces in the Donbas, regional Governor Serhiy Gaidai on Tuesday.
Nearly all critical infrastructure in Sievierodonetsk had been destroyed and 60% of residential property damaged beyond repair, he said. Russian shelling had made it impossible to deliver aid or evacuate people.
A Russian victory in Sievierodonetsk and its twin city of Lysychansk across the Siverskyi Donets river would bring full control of Luhansk, one of two eastern provinces Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.
A pro-Moscow separatist leader said Russian proxies had advanced slower than expected to “maintain the city’s infrastructure” and exercise caution around its chemical factories.
“We can say already that a third of Sievierodonetsk is already under our control,” Russia’s TASS state news agency quoted Leonid Pasechnik, the leader of the pro-Moscow Luhansk People’s Republic, as saying.
Gaidai warned Sievierodonetsk residents not to leave bomb shelters due to what he said was a Russian air strike on a nitric acid tank.
The Luhansk People’s Republic’s police force said Ukraine’s forces had damaged it. Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists traded accusations over a similar incident in April.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid agency which had long operated out of Sievierodonetsk, said he was “horrified” by its destruction.
Up to 12,000 civilians remain caught in crossfire, without sufficient access to water, food, medicine or electricity, Egeland said.
“The near-constant bombardment is forcing civilians to seek refuge in bomb shelters and basements, with only few precious opportunities for those trying to escape,” he said.
WEAPONS PACKAGE
Ukraine says weapons sent by the United States and other countries since the beginning of the invasion have helped fend off Russian gains.
The high mobility artillery rocket systems are part of a $700 million weapons package expected to be unveiled by the United States on Wednesday.
The package includes ammunition, counter fire radars, a number of air surveillance radars, additional Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as anti-armour weapons, officials said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for more weapons while lambasting the European Union, which agreed on Monday to cut imports of Russian oil, for not sanctioning energy from Russia sooner.
The EU said it would ban imports of Russian oil by sea. Officials said that would halt two-thirds of Russia’s oil exports to Europe at first, and 90% by the end of this year.
Responding to the EU oil embargo, Russia widened its gas cuts to Europe, pushing up prices and ratcheted up its economic battle with Brussels.
Putin launched his “special operation” in February to disarm and “denazify” Ukraine. Ukraine and its Western allies call this a baseless pretext for a war to seize territory.
Ukraine accuses Russia of war crimes on a huge scale, flattening cities and killing and raping civilians. Russia denies the accusations.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Stephen Coates; Editing Grant McCool and Lincoln Feast.)
Biden: U.S. will provide precision rockets to Ukraine
Lara Seligman and Paul McLeary – May 31, 2022
Mosa’ab Elshamy/AP Photo
The U.S. will provide Ukraine with more advanced rocket systems and precision-guided munitions that will give them an edge on the battlefield, President Joe Biden wrote in an opinion article in the New York Times published Tuesday.
But Kyiv has given the United States assurances that the new weapons will be used in Ukraine and not against targets in Russia, senior administration officials told reporters after Biden’s op-ed was published.
“America’s goal is straightforward: We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression,” Biden wrote. “We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia.”
Ukrainian officials have been clamoring for advanced, longer-range rocket systems for weeks, but Washington has been concerned with the range of the weapons. Officials worried that sending weapons that could reach targets in Russia could provoke President Vladimir Putin into committing further atrocities or escalating the conflict by using chemical or nuclear weapons.
The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) that the U.S. is sending is a mobile rocket launcher that can strike targets from 40 to over 300 miles away, depending on the type of rocket it is outfitted with. The rockets that the administration has decided to send are on the shorter end, reaching up to 48 miles, the officials said.
Along with the HIMARS, the U.S. will send “munitions that will enable the Ukrainians to more precisely strike targets on the battlefield from a greater distance,” according to one of the officials.
The officials stressed that the new rockets will be used solely to strike targets on the battlefield in Ukraine, not into Russia.
“We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders,” the official said.
In his op-ed, Biden addressed worldwide concerns about the conflict sparking a nuclear war. The U.S. currently sees “no indication that Russia has intent to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” Biden said though he stressed that Moscow’s “occasional rhetorical to rattle the nuclear saber is itself dangerous and extremely irresponsible.”
“Let me be clear: Any use of nuclear weapons in this conflict on any scale would be completely unacceptable to us as well as the rest of the world and would entail severe consequences,” Biden wrote.
The HIMARS and its munitions are part of a new $700 million aid package for Ukraine, which will be announced on Wednesday, the officials said. The package also includes counterfire radars, a number of air surveillance radars, additional Javelin anti-tank missiles, anti-armor weapons, additional artillery rounds, helicopters, additional tactical vehicles and spare parts, the second official said.
While there are limitations placed on their range, the HIMARS is a vastly more modern weapons system than anything the Ukrainians, or the Russians, can currently put on the battlefield. The vehicle-mounted launchers can fire volleys of six guided rockets at a time that land within several feet of their intended target, an accuracy unmatched in the artillery duels taking place across the Donbas in Eastern Ukraine. The vehicle carrying the launchers can also travel at more than 50 miles per hour.
The system can be reloaded within minutes and a new target can be digitally entered into the fire control system. The Russian and Ukrainian multiple-rocket systems currently in the fight can fire more rockets — a dozen to several dozen at a time — but each volley takes longer to load, and a new target must be physically resighted and the launchers redirected using cranks. Such a slow, labor-intensive process makes the vehicles juicy targets for the counter-battery radar systems the U.S. has rushed to Ukraine.
Only a few countries other than the United States operate the system: Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Romania. Poland and Australia have each ordered 20 HIMARS systems in recent years but have not yet taken delivery.
Security Service of Ukraine: Ukrainian soldiers destroyed a large unit of Wagner Group fighters in Donbas
Ukrayinska Pravda – May 31, 2022
Ukrainian defenders destroyed a large unit of the Wagner Group [a network of mercenaries who serve as the de facto private army of Russian President Vladimir Putin] in Donbas.
Details: A new telephone conversation between the invaders which was intercepted by the Security Service of Ukraine [SSU] showed that after the elimination of such an elite unit of Russian soldiers (according to a source, the Wagner group fighters were killed on 27 May), ordinary Russian occupiers are hesitating whether to fight.
Quote from the occupier: “So many ChVK Wagner [ChVK is the Russian abbreviation for Private Military Company] fighters were deployed there, where the border needs to be taken… But these ChVKs are of no use there! They all died there, these ChVKs. These are f**king special forces! Prepared, holy sh*t! They all died. Well, not all of them, there were some left. F**k if I know, I don’t see any other way out of this situation at all.”
Details: According to the intercepted call, the wife gives the occupier the right advice – “F**k them all, with their army.”
Previously: The Security Service of Ukraine has intercepted telephone conversations between Russian commanders in which they complain about their subordinates refusing to go on the offensive.
According to the prosecutor general, a Russian soldier from the 239th regiment of the 90th guards tank Vitebsk-Novgorod division, Mikhail Romanov, will be tried for the murder of a man and sexual abuse of his wife in Kyiv Oblast.
The investigation states that in March, during the occupation of the Brovary district of Kyiv Oblast, the invader broke into a house in one of the villages and shot its owner. After that, under the influence of alcohol, the Russian soldier, together with his comrade-in-arms, raped a woman several times. They threatened the woman with weapons and violence against her child, who was nearby at that time.
Venediktova stressed that he would not escape a fair trial and responsibility before the law. She also urged to report other possible crimes of the invader.
Earlier Liudmyla Denisova, the Ombudsman for Human Rights in Ukraine, said the cases of rape, of both adults and children, by Russian occupying forces had been revealed to be widespread after their retreat from Kyiv Oblast.
These, and other atrocities, were revealed to the world on the discovery of the bodies of civilians, tortured and murdered and dumped on the streets of Bucha, Irpin, Borodianka, and along the Zhytomyr highway.
According to Denisova, it is now impossible to estimate the scale of sexual crimes committed by Russian forces during the occupation of Ukrainian settlements. The unwillingness of victims to testify may complicate things further, the Ombudsman says – law enforcement authorities are unable to record crimes that are not reported.
I served in Vietnam, no child should experience the horror of military weapons as I did
Wes Kendall – May 30, 2022
Editor’s note: this story details historic violence and connects it to the recent massacre in Uvalde, Texas, which some readers may find upsetting.
We are again in another horrible, tragic moment. Our school children were murdered by a gunman with an assault rifle.
On this Memorial Day, it brings it all back for me to a place I do not want to go. Even though I was awarded a Bronze Star while there, some of it is still very painful. But for all of us who love this nation, we feel we must stand up and be counted.
In Vietnam, I carried an M-16 and I was assigned to the 7th Psychological Operations Battalion in Da Nang, South Vietnam. We made propaganda leaflets and dropped them from airplanes. Hoping they would persuade the enemy to surrender.
After battles, our soldiers assembled enemy bodies for a body count. I was assigned to photograph them for new leaflets, describing the battle and their friend’s death. Nothing was more shocking than to see the results of arms and legs blown off or bodies cut in half. Close-up views of what assault weapons were meant to do. Kill people.
Wes Kendall In Vietnam. He carried an M-16 and was assigned 7th Psychological Operation Battalion in Da Nang, South Vietnam
Therefore, I understand why DNA had to be provided for some of the small children in Texas. I’ve seen and photographed the results of assault weapons.
When I thought back about how the horrors of war, what I saw in Vietnam and that same thing had happened to our young children in school, it became too much. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is what we go to wars over. The protection of our family and nation is what it’s all about.
I cannot remain silent when I see our, so-called leaders, put more importance on guns than they do the safety of our people.
Fifty Republican senators are responsible for nothing being done on gun control, or restrictions on assault weapons in the U.S. I suggest those senators be required to go to the morgue in Texas and see, firsthand, what their love for power and weapons has accomplished and then explain to us why it is more important than the lives of our school children.
Why are these 50 republicans so adamant about protecting the unborn, from fertilization to delivery? But after birth, do nothing to protect them from gunmen who murder them in schools? They only deliver lip service. Statements, that we as parents can recite, word for word. “Need more teachers with guns,” or “more funds for mental health.” Your actions speak loud and clear and your words are totally meaningless.
Senators, you should see in person, what your precious handy work and stalling tactics have achieved. To see small children – cut beyond recognition. If that doesn’t affect your opinion nothing will. I know that will never happen because that takes courage, integrity, and responsibility and you have none.
Our only solution is to seek out those politicians responsible for this problem and vote them out of office. As voters, this should be our number one priority on the ballot. Stop the killing of our children. Then your replacement can work and help make laws that will help keep our citizens from being killed.
Wes Kendall
This is not about taking away your guns — it always comes to that argument — no one wants to take away your guns. It’s only about removing military-style weapons from the public that should never have been there in the first place. If this had been done by a terrorist attack on our school children – something would have been done immediately.
Wes Kendall is an artist, Vietnam Veteran and Bronze Star recipient who lives in Louisville.
The boots of one the 62 Russian soldiersÕ bodies stick out from a bag, in a refrigerated train car on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, May 29, 2022. (Nicole Tung/The New York Times)
KHARKIV, Ukraine — They lie in white and black bags at 20 degrees below zero Celsius, but the stench is still overpowering. Filled with the bodies of 62 Russian soldiers, the bags are stacked in a refrigerated train car in a secret location on the outskirts of Ukraine’s second-largest city. A spry, elderly train worker spun open the vaultlike door to reveal the bloodied bags as the scent hung in the damp air.
“We are collecting these bodies for sanitary reasons, because dogs have been eating them,” said a Ukrainian soldier who would only give his call sign, Summer. “Eventually, we will return them to their loved ones.”
Summer said many of the bodies had been lying in the open for a month or longer before his unit found them. His two-man team works to identify the soldiers by their faces, tattoos and belongings. They also take a DNA swab from each corpse to determine whether any are potential war-crimes suspects.
In the gloom of the darkened car, a few traces of humanity, of the soldiers who once brought Russia’s war to Ukraine, can be made out. A pair of boots caked in mud peek out of one bag. Off in the corner, the collar of a camouflage jacket is visible through an opening, but not a face.
Summer’s colleague, who refused to use even his first initial because of the sensitivity of the topic, said they were the only two men in their unit tasked with finding and preserving the bodies of the enemy. He said identifications were possible about 50% of the time, while in other cases, the corpses were too deteriorated. Most of the bodies had been found in villages around Kharkiv.
“This is the best work in the world,” he said of the grim satisfaction to be found in collecting the corpses of the invader.
In recent weeks, the Ukrainian army successfully counterattacked Russian forces, pushing them farther from Kharkiv and giving the city a sense of calm, at least until shelling resumed again Wednesday.
When the Russians retreated, they left some of their fallen behind, and as Kharkiv inhabitants have begun returning tentatively to villages that had been in the line of fire, some have found the bodies in their homes or have stumbled across them elsewhere.
The train attendant sleeps in the wagon next to the refrigerated car, keeping guard over the corpses. Colleagues have taken on similar duties in other cities, among them Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro, where other refrigerated wagons hold hundreds of bodies.
Ukrainian authorities have complained that the Kremlin has been reluctant to engage on the subject of repatriating its dead.
Ukraine says 30,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the invasion began Feb. 24; those numbers are impossible to independently verify, and Russia rarely gives casualty tolls. Last week, a British intelligence assessment put the estimated Russian losses at half that number. Thousands more Russians are missing or are being held by the Ukrainians, Western intelligence agencies estimate.
Russia has not released casualty figures since late March, when it said 1,351 soldiers had died and 3,825 had been wounded. Estimates based on publicly available evidence suggest that well over 400 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in one incident alone this month in northeastern Ukraine.
Last week, for the first time since Russia invaded, President Vladimir Putin visited a military hospital in Moscow to visit wounded soldiers. Donning a white lab coat, he called everyone serving in Ukraine “heroes.” Putin also announced further compensation increases for people serving there, a sign he may be trying to tamp down bubbling public discontent over casualties. Russia also abolished upper age limits for signing a military service contract.
Ukraine has not shared its own military casualty information, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week at Davos that as many as 100 servicemen might be dying every day in the brutal fighting in the eastern Donbas region.
Allies of Ukraine have also been reluctant to comment on the casualties the country’s troops have sustained, but U.S. intelligence agencies estimated in mid-April that between 5,500 and 11,000 soldiers had been killed and more than 18,000 wounded.
One of the soldiers handling the Russian corpses in Kharkiv said he hoped Ukraine’s decision to safeguard Russia’s war dead may improve its chances of getting its own back from behind enemy lines.
“For me,” he said, “it is most important that we bring the bodies of our boys back to their families. So we treat these bodies respectfully.”
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