Russian Soldiers Reveal the Truth Behind Putin's Secret War - NewsWeek
46 replies, posted
[url]http://www.newsweek.com/2014/09/19/russian-soldiers-reveal-truth-behind-putins-secret-war-269227.html[/url]
[quote=NewsWeek]Lyudmila Malinina’s voice trembled as she described the secret funeral she witnessed on a recent night in her small town of Sudislavsky in the Kostroma region of central Russia. At about 8pm, a truck parked at the cemetery a few yards away from her wooden house. The truck’s headlights stayed on to illuminate the ground for several men to hurriedly dig the grave, “as if they were thieves hiding something”, Luydmila says.
More neighbours popped out of their windows and doors to watch and discuss the strange scene, wondering why anybody would bury a relative at this hour. Besides, that part of the graveyard was reserved for the deceased in war, as somebody pointed out.
While Nato sat down for a summit to decide what to do about the war in Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin negotiated a ceasefire deal with Kiev, Russian society recoiled from reports about secret funerals of soldiers killed in Ukraine: missing sons, calls from husbands begging their wives to save them from •battle, bodies with missing limbs arriving in coffins to Nizhny Novgorod, Orenburg, Pskov, Murmansk, Dagestan and other regions of Russia. The death toll for Russian soldiers jumped to more than 200 soldiers in a few days, between August 12th and September 2nd, in a war that was, officially, not happening.[/quote]
[quote=NewsWeek]Russian army wives have a special term for dead soldiers returning home from the front lines in zinc coffins: they are called “cargo 200” – a phrase that has echoed like a curse to a Russian ear since the days that a tide of zinc packages came in from Afghanistan during the Soviet war of 1980s. The secrecy around their husbands’ deployments “was like a trap created by a schizophrenic”, one of the Kostroma paratroopers’ wives says.
One of the soldier contractors, who served in Ukraine, described “the longest August” of his life on the front, in a phone interview with Newsweek. What was the worst part? Wounded friends dying in Rostov hospitals; the men in zinc, the “200s” being sent home, and a high risk of becoming one. “When we were on the train to Rostov last month, I had no idea we were to go to Ukraine; we all believed they brought us to a base for the usual routine exercises. If I knew it was for war, I’d have quit back in Kostroma, as I have two little children at home,” the paratrooper of the 331st regiment of Russia’s 98th Guards Airborne Division, says.
What mattered to the paratrooper most were the men on his left and right, his children and wife waiting for him in his hometown of Kostroma, 320km north of Moscow. Among his fellow men, he says, there was little understanding of Putin’s idea to establish Novorossiya, or New Russia, as a separatist state in eastern Ukraine.
Who was Russia’s main enemy? That answer seemed instantly ready: “America.” In a few days on the front lines under constant fire, the Kostroma paratrooper “dried up down to the bones”, not from the lack of food but from the constant fear of death, he said, that he had never experienced before.
Earlier that day, his regiment was brought back to the base in Rostov region, to wash in the banya, or Russian steam bath, and have one night of solid sleep. The soldiers had their first chance for a break from battle, for a quick chat with families since they crossed the Ukrainian border on August 18th. [b]So as not to be identified as Russian regular forces, commanders ordered the paratroopers to change into the Western military surplus desert camouflage their wives had to buy for them, with their own money.[/b][/quote]
[quote=NewsWeek]Nobody asked the servicemen to sign any additional papers, though current contracts did not stipulate deployment to a foreign state. “I never volunteered for this; but any attempts to quit would be useless – they are sending us back to the meat grinder tomorrow; if somebody told me earlier about the truth, none of us would have signed up for $1,000 a month to get fried alive in Ukraine,” says the officer in his thirties, who requested his identity be concealed.
[b]The use of misleading uniforms to sneak into foreign territory for a secret operation does not surprise Russian military experts.[/b] One Moscow-based army analyst recalled the earlier “masquerades” or false flag operations under Soviet military doctrine, [b]sending Soviet and Russian commandos dressed as locals in Afghanistan and in Chechnya[/b]: “Our forces conducted secret operations in the Middle East and in Africa this way. Putin’s strategy is not unique,” says the analyst who declined to be named.
While the Russian leaders stuck to their denials, mobile phone chats and social media forums fill up with images of •the country's artillery and “Grad rocket” launchers rolling across Ukrainian border. Russian internet users across the country watched videos of army mothers and wives covering their wet-with-tears faces with both hands, begging Putin to free their loved ones “in God’s name”, as well as video interviews with soldiers captured by Ukrainian forces.[/quote]
[quote=NewsWeek]“We are ‘polite green men’, born in the USSR, just the same as in Crimea,” one of them told me. A few days later, rebels occupied one more Ukrainian town, Horlivka. Their commander Anatoly Starostin described what “a great relief” it was to have support from Russian special forces. “They are about 60 top-class professionals, unspeakably well-trained,” Starostin said of the “polite green men”. Russian special forces took over television transmitters, so locals would watch only Russian state channels covering the Kremlin’s official line.
It wasn’t long before the first truck with a large, crookedly written “200” on its side rolled into Russia on June 2nd, bringing back 31 bodies of Russian “volunteer” soldiers, mostly in their late 30s to early 40s. Afterwards, members of the press in the courtyard of Kirovsky Hospital’s morgue in Donetsk, watched doctors and rebels whispering over the wooden coffins: “Let them receive them on the other side and figure out where to send the refrigerator,” they muttered, clueless about the final destination.
No Russian state channels mentioned the 31 red coffins making their way home across the sunflower fields; it took days for families of “the volunteers” to break through the wall of secrecy and find the frozen bodies of their men.[/quote]
Also as a bonus, I found new pictures showing passports and identification for some men killed in Ukraine on August 28th. All the documents are of Russian origin, and the last date on them is from 2013, showing these documents are still actively used by Russian ground forces for personnel and weaponry listing.
[url]http://imgur.com/a/BVTy6[/url]
One of the men was 21 (Andrey Skrgeevich?), the other was 19 (I can't read the name for this persons identification).
Why must they continue to relive old Soviet dreams? The Tsar dreams were just as good if not more ambitious.
[QUOTE=Uber|nooB;45985776]Sergeyevich[/QUOTE]
Yeah I looked at it again and I don't know where I got a k from.
Also tried to edit but all of the text disappeared so fuck it.
[quote] commanders ordered the paratroopers to change into the Western military surplus desert camouflage [B]their wives had to buy for them, with their own money.[/B][/quote]
Isn't it common for soldiers to purchase their own uniforms anyway in different countries, despite the fact that these aren't actually their own?
Yup. Just another Bradley Manning into the mix, this time from Mother Russia.
[QUOTE=Megadave;45985777]Why must they continue to relive old Soviet dreams? The Tsar dreams were just as good if not more ambitious.[/QUOTE]
They're basically the same thing with a little different flavor. Imperial expansion led by Moscow.
[quote]If I knew it was for war, I’d have quit back in Kostroma
[/quote]
I wonder what he thought the army does
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;45985798]Isn't it common for soldiers to purchase their own uniforms anyway in different countries, despite the fact that these aren't actually their own?[/QUOTE]
i think you're confusing dress uniform with something else, its common for officers to have to buy their own dress uniform but thats not for combat its for show
[QUOTE=Sableye;45985825]i think you're confusing dress uniform with something else, its common for officers to have to buy their own dress uniform but thats not for combat its for show[/QUOTE]
Ah, okay. Wasn't quite sure about it.
[QUOTE=Megadave;45985777]Why must they continue to relive old Soviet dreams? The Tsar dreams were just as good if not more ambitious.[/QUOTE]
Think of it like this: Ukraine and quite broadly speaking, East Europe& Central Asia have under Russian sphere of influence quite often in history; I can't recall moments when Ukraine has been as vehemently opposed to Russia as it is now, and Russia opposed to Ukraine's change of mind to ally itself with the West.
So, from that perspective,I recall the events that followed after Cuba's shift in policy after the communist takeover also showed an opposition from the US, because the former US-friendly gov't was overthrown...and neighboring Cuba was becomming a bro with the USSR.
Here's a short background story on Cuba prior to the commie revolution
[QUOTE]Although Batista had been a relative progressive during his first term,[11] in the 1950s he proved far more dictatorial and indifferent to popular concerns.[12] While Cuba remained plagued by high unemployment and limited water infrastructure,[13] Batista antagonized the population by forming lucrative links to organised crime and allowing American companies to dominate the Cuban economy.[13][14][15]
During his first term as [B]President, Batista[/B] had been supported by the Communist Party of Cuba,[11] but during his second term he became strongly anti-communist, gaining him political support and military aid from the United States.[13][16] Batista developed a powerful security infrastructure to silence political opponents, leading John F. Kennedy to describe the Cuban government as a "complete police state" in 1960.[13] In the months following the March 1952 coup, Fidel Castro, then a young lawyer and activist, petitioned for the overthrow of Batista, whom he accused of corruption and tyranny. However, Castro's constitutional arguments were rejected by the Cuban courts.[17] After deciding that the Cuban state could not be overthrown through legal means, Castro resolved to launch an armed revolution. To this end, he and his brother Raúl founded a paramilitary organization known as "The Movement", stockpiling weapons and recruiting around 1,200 followers from Havana's disgruntled working class by the end of 1952[/QUOTE]
[editline]15th September 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE]"I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear."
— U.S. President John F. Kennedy, interview with Jean Daniel, 24 October 1963[[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;45985798]Isn't it common for soldiers to purchase their own uniforms anyway in different countries, despite the fact that these aren't actually their own?[/QUOTE]
No.
By wearing a foreign uniform you are both removing any Geneva POW protections you have and committing a war crime as you're using another's uniform to deceive the enemy.
[editline]16th September 2014[/editline]
Let me clarify; wearing an enemy uniform is ok, fighting in an enemy uniform is not - it's a war crime called perfidy.
It's the same thing that allows naval ships to fly an enemy flag to infiltrate enemy waters but before they can use any offensive weapons they must lower the enemy flag.
[QUOTE=download;45985973]No.
By wearing a foreign uniform you are both removing any Geneva POW protections you have and committing a war crime as you're using another's uniform to deceive the enemy.
[editline]16th September 2014[/editline]
Let me clarify; wearing an enemy uniform is ok, fighting in an enemy uniform is not - it's a war crime called perfidy.
It's the same thing that allows naval ships to fly an enemy flag to infiltrate enemy waters but before they can use any offensive weapons they must lower the enemy flag.[/QUOTE]
Literally nothing to do with what I was asking.
I don't care about whose uniforms they were wearing, I was asking about them purchasing them with their own money.
Not to mention they aren't wearing any specific foreign military uniform, just "western style camo" outfits.
[QUOTE=download;45985973]No.
By wearing a foreign uniform you are both removing any Geneva POW protections you have and committing a war crime as you're using another's uniform to deceive the enemy.
[editline]16th September 2014[/editline]
Let me clarify; wearing an enemy uniform is ok, fighting in an enemy uniform is not - it's a war crime called perfidy.
It's the same thing that allows naval ships to fly an enemy flag to infiltrate enemy waters but before they can use any offensive weapons they must lower the enemy flag.[/QUOTE]
Good thing they didn't wear the foreign uniforms while fighting then, as it explains in the article.
[editline]15th September 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Megadave;45985777]Why must they continue to relive old Soviet dreams? The Tsar dreams were just as good if not more ambitious.[/QUOTE]
The "Soviet dreams" are and were identical to the "Tsar dreams" of the past. It's all just a continuation of the old style Russian chauvinism and domination of small peoples.
(Now I feel like the ghost of Conscript is going to slit my throat in my sleep.)
Is someone else eagerly awaiting some Russians and their attempts to defend their country?
Putin's "secret" war.
He's about as good at keeping secrets as Victoria is.
[QUOTE=Last or First;45986161]Putin's "secret" war.
He's about as good at keeping secrets as Victoria is.[/QUOTE]
Holy shit, good one.
10/10 would read again
With such title I didn't expect anything different.
So Russian soldiers in Afganistan "dressed as locals"? I forgot Russian soldiers have a lot fo experience in changing race and skin color.
This whole article seems really shady to me. Why would they bury the soldiers at night, but infront of many people to see the funeral? The army has a lot of lands it can use.
Where does the death toll they talk about come from? 200 soldiers? Who said that? Papers, please.
They talk of a soldier that "served in Ukraine". What does that mean? Implying he fought for Russia on Ukrainian land? Proof then, please.
If some many Russian soldiers died in Ukraine then why didn't the glorious Ukraine army get any bodies? From the official statemets of the western media Russia actually only used artillery against Ukrainians. Now contradicting themselves?
So it's all secret and black ops, yet they write "200" on a truck full of bodies? That's basically implying Russians are incredibly stupid.
[QUOTE=MuffinZerg;45986317]
So it's all secret and black ops, yet they write "200" on a truck full of bodies? [B]That's basically implying Russians are incredibly stupid.[/B][/QUOTE]
They are.
[QUOTE=MuffinZerg;45986317]
So Russian soldiers in Afganistan "dressed as locals"? I forgot Russian soldiers have a lot fo experience in changing race and skin color.
This whole article seems really shady to me. Why would they bury the soldiers at night, but infront of many people to see the funeral? The army has a lot of lands it can use.
[/QUOTE]
Everybody knows Russians are actually vampires, this explains the colour changing skin and the burial at night to avoid the sun burning the mourners.
[quote]So it's all secret and black ops, yet they write "200" on a truck full of bodies? That's basically implying Russians are incredibly stupid.[/quote]
It needs to be secret black ops to be scary, otherwise people wouldn't fear it. It needs to be a really obvious and obnoxious truck or people might think its just any old transport truck picture taken from anywhere.
The numbers also help connect it with a feeling of anonymity suggesting a low value of human life akin to a mass grave.
[t]http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2014/09/10/crimea.jpg[/t] Its also important to have desaturated pictures to make it more scary with the face hidden vibe going on. To crank up the soviet imagry the picture they have used an AKM instead of an AK74, this helps reinforce the "russian army is stuck in the 80s" thing which might be ruined since they are wearing digital camo. The silencer also helps the whole black ops image. Can't be special forces with a silencer.
The non standard equipment (gun) also helps the special forces thing. They must be really black ops to wear a facemask and use a gun like that.
[QUOTE=Stopper;45986123]Is someone else eagerly awaiting some Russians and their attempts to defend their country?[/QUOTE]
I was about to say I've never encountered one in a thread about Ukraine, but
[QUOTE=MuffinZerg;45986317]With such title I didn't expect anything different.
So Russian soldiers in Afganistan "dressed as locals"? I forgot Russian soldiers have a lot fo experience in changing race and skin color.
This whole article seems really shady to me. Why would they bury the soldiers at night, but infront of many people to see the funeral? The army has a lot of lands it can use.
Where does the death toll they talk about come from? 200 soldiers? Who said that? Papers, please.
They talk of a soldier that "served in Ukraine". What does that mean? Implying he fought for Russia on Ukrainian land? Proof then, please.
[B]If some many Russian soldiers died in Ukraine then why didn't the glorious Ukraine army get any bodies? [/B]From the official statemets of the western media Russia actually only used artillery against Ukrainians. Now contradicting themselves?
So it's all secret and black ops, yet they write "200" on a truck full of bodies? That's basically implying Russians are incredibly stupid.[/QUOTE]
It's not like the Ukrainians are consistently overrunning rebel/Russian positions to get these bodies. This is about as naive a statement as the people who post on combat footage "Wow I can't even see what they're shooting at this must be fake"
[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;45986401][t]http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2014/09/10/crimea.jpg[/t] Its also important to have desaturated pictures to make it more scary with the face hidden vibe going on. To crank up the soviet imagry the picture they have used an AKM instead of an AK74, this helps reinforce the "russian army is stuck in the 80s" thing which might be ruined since they are wearing digital camo. The silencer also helps the whole black ops image. Can't be special forces with a silencer.
The non standard equipment (gun) also helps the special forces thing. They must be really black ops to wear a facemask and use a gun like that.[/QUOTE]
Russian SF still uses the AKM for a suppressed weapon because 7.62x39 performs better than 5.45x39 as a subsonic round, due to velocity no longer being an upside so the larger mass of the 7.62 packs a better punch. [I]Just sayain'[/I]
[sp]Also, general public can't tell difference on an AKM and AK74M for shit, so it doesn't matter in painting the image you'd like it to for your claimed propaganda.[/sp]
Well the bit about the uniforms explains why so many of them had a more western appearance. A lot of people were using that as evidence of US/NATO involvement, this blows that conspiracy theory wide open.
[QUOTE=Explosions;45986095](Now I feel like the ghost of Conscript is going to slit my throat in my sleep.)[/QUOTE]
Oh don't worry there's still plenty of Conscripts in the forum to do the work of defending Russia no matter what for him.
[QUOTE=Riller;45986612]
[sp]Also, general public can't tell difference on an AKM and AK74M for shit, so it doesn't matter in painting the image you'd like it to for your claimed propaganda.[/sp][/QUOTE]
AK74M usually doesn't feature wooden grip and folding buttstock, which is exactly the case with basic AKMs.
[QUOTE=DrAkcel;45987943]AK74M usually doesn't feature wooden grip and folding buttstock, which is exactly the case with basic AKMs.[/QUOTE]
Most people don't bother identifying it beyond "AK".
[QUOTE=asteroidrules;45987963]Most people don't bother identifying it beyond "AK".[/QUOTE]
I know that I personally could not tell you the difference between them.
[QUOTE=asteroidrules;45987963]Most people don't bother identifying it beyond "AK".[/QUOTE]
That's a shame, because there is a lot of variations: AK, AKM, AK-74, AKM-74, AKS, AKS-74, and brand new AK-12.
Not even counting AK-based weaponry, like Groza, Saiga and RPK...
[QUOTE=Megadave;45985777]Why must they continue to relive old Soviet dreams? The Tsar dreams were just as good if not more ambitious.[/QUOTE]
Toss away hundreds of years of Tsardom and then take up Communism for about 100 years, what is there for the populace to do after all the work only to end up bankrupt?
I would be pissed as hell and willing to long for the old days if I were a grumpy old russian.
[QUOTE=Riller;45986612]Russian SF still uses the AKM for a suppressed weapon because 7.62x39 performs better than 5.45x39 as a subsonic round, due to velocity no longer being an upside so the larger mass of the 7.62 packs a better punch. [I]Just sayain'[/I]
[sp]Also, general public can't tell difference on an AKM and AK74M for shit, so it doesn't matter in painting the image you'd like it to for your claimed propaganda.[/sp][/QUOTE]
They also keep it because 7.62x39 has better barrier penetration which is a huge plus in urban combat.
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