A growing number of Russian men disaffected by Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine have turned their backs on their own country to join Kyiv’s army in the bloody conflict.
The Ukrainian army has formed a special unit, dubbed the Siberian Battalion, to accommodate Russian defectors willing to take up arms against their former homeland.
“I’m disappointed in my own people,” said a battalion member who went by the military call sign Karabas. “That’s why I want to come here…and fight for a free Ukraine.”
“I don’t want to be part of Putin’s Russia or Russia in general anymore,” he added. “I do not believe that Russia as an empire as it is now can be free.”
Unlike other volunteer units in Ukraine that have Russians in their ranks, including the Russian Freedom Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, the Siberian Battalion is officially part of the Ukrainian regular army.
The battalion was created six months ago and now numbers several dozen fighters. Ukraine’s military hopes more will follow – and based on the applications that have come in so far, they aim to have a 300-strong Russian combat unit.
The Ukrainian army has formed a Siberian Battalion of soldiers made up entirely of Russians who want to fight against Moscow’s army. The AP Battalion, which is part of Ukraine’s regular army, was formed six months ago and now numbers several dozen fighters. AP
Karabas speculated that “there must be tens, hundreds of thousands” of other Russians like him, willing to fight side by side with Ukrainians.
“I think we should have more [Russian fighters],” he said.
Prospective soldiers are put through extensive security checks, which sometimes take up to a year, before they are offered training and sent to the front lines in eastern Ukraine, which has seen some of the fiercest fighting of the war.
The unit has already been deployed near the town of Avdiivka in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region, which Moscow’s forces have long struggled to recapture.
A member of the unit using the military call sign Karabas said he was disappointed in his own country. The Ukrainian AP led by President Volodymyr Zelensky has been fighting against the Russian army since February 2022. AP It takes potential volunteers almost a year to be accepted into the ranks of the new battalion, after going through security checks and interviews. AP
Karabas, who was living in Moscow at the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, said he was so shocked by the images coming from the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine – and dismayed by his countrymen’s blind support for Putin – that he was inspired. to defect.
But it would take Russian volunteers almost a year to join the Siberian Battalion.
Karabas packed his bags and went first to Armenia, where he connected with the Ukrainians living there and mastered the language so he wouldn’t have to speak Russian anymore.
Most of the battalion’s members came from Russia’s impoverished far-eastern regions. AP The Russian military attacked Kyiv with rockets this week, injuring dozens. AP
He eventually traveled to Ukraine, where his documents were examined and he was questioned at length about his motives.
Volunteers like Karabas – many of them from ethnic communities in Russia’s far east, which have historically been plagued by poverty and racism – hope that Ukraine’s victory in the war will bring them closer to breaking Moscow’s grip on their territory.
“I think this is a necessity,” said a battalion member with the call sign Grifin of his decision to join the fight on the Ukrainian side. “I almost went crazy, because I felt like an outcast, and it was not pleasant at all.”
Griffin said he experienced a moment of “psychological relief” only when he learned that he would be allowed to be part of the foreign battalion.
Vladimir Putin has signaled his intention to run again in Russia. AP
Another Russian fighter, who goes by the call sign Holod, which means “cold” in Russian, said he eventually wants to see Putin’s regime ousted – although the Russian leader signaled this week his desire for re-election for another six-year term.
“When this happens, we can talk about victory,” he said. “Russia will at least cease to be a source of sudden aggression.”
With Postal wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
