Stalingrad, 1942. The propaganda of the USSR that speaks of Russian troops fighting heroically in the battle that bears the name of the Soviet leader also praises an order that has become a war cry and a slogan that even accompanies us today in different demonstrations: “Not one step back!” Its translation on the battlefield is that those soldiers, logically worse equipped than the Nazi hordes, could not take a step back to escape the German bullets, because they would encounter the fire of their comrades.
. In one of the Ukrainian provinces of Donbas annexed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Russian advances are few, meters in exchange for numerous lives of its troops crashing in constant waves against kyiv’s defenses and drones, which has been colloquially nicknamed the “meat grinder.” But a sort of ‘not a step back 2.0’ also prevails for those who refuse to comply with these orders. Of course, without propaganda. Only the noise of the shots and the silence of the witnesses.
“I see it: only two meters, three meters… clic, clack, bang“, are the sparse but forceful statements of a Russian soldier for the documentary from the British network in which he describes the last moments of a companion after a commander ordered his execution. The executed man returned in a wooden box, but the person who decided on his life was decorated as a Hero of Russia two years ago.
“One of them yelled, ‘Don’t shoot, I’ll do anything!’, but… he aimed at them anyway.”
The four testimonies collected in the aforementioned documentary portray a military campaign in which the Russian Army has no regard for getting rid of its own soldiers if they refuse to participate in a military strategy consisting of not giving Ukraine a single respite based on waves of combatants who end up involved in authentic suicide missions, sometimes, to take over a practically ruined village or an enclave of little strategic value, but which adds to the balance of conquered land. It is the first time that Russian soldiers have publicly stated that they have witnessed and seen these executions with their own eyes.
Murders like those seen by Ilya, 35, who went from being a teacher of care for autistic children or those with other special needs in Kungur, a town in the Ural Mountains, to a forcibly mobilized person who was even searched for at his parents’ house. Along with 78 other souls, he suddenly found himself in a recruiting center watching them and trying to solve the question of “how did I get here?”
He remembers that “almost everyone was drunk” and that “he was very afraid” amidst the chants, shouts and sands that advocated: “Forward, into battle!” And they promised: “We will grab Zelensky and raise our flag!” The vast majority of them went directly to the front, he ended up in a command position. Paradoxically, there Ilya saw shots and soldiers falling, but from Russian bullets.
“The saddest thing is that I knew them,” he recalls about four fellow soldiers who were shot at point-blank range by their own commander and on separate occasions. They had fled the front line of war and did not want to return: “I remember one of them shouted: ‘Don’t shoot, I’ll do anything!’, but he [el comandante] he aimed at them anyway.”
“They simply took their bank cards and killed them”
This story has numerous coincidences, such as that of Dima, another 34-year-old young man who was forcibly mobilized. When he was caught on the street in Moscow, in October 2022, he was just a dishwasher repair technician on his way to do his job. He knew he was in trouble when he saw what the identification process was like: “They just see my passport, do something on their laptop and tell me ‘if you don’t go to the army you’re going to jail.'” Recruited.
A paramedic unit managed to enter when he stated that he would not be able to kill, a common practice, but one that is usually affected by the reality of war. He ended up in a front-line casualty evacuation brigade. Under the orders of the aforementioned decorated commander, Alexei Ksenofontov, who also has great decorations such as the Gold Star. It is a common nickname for Russian cadres, but he is nicknamed the “butcher.”
“He gives too many orders to kill soldiers, too much blood on his hands, too much,” Dima explains to the BBCwho witnessed how 20 soldiers, a group of recruited ex-prisoners who had arrived the night before, ended up in a pit riddled with bullets.
“They brought twenty boys to us. They simply took their bank cards and killed them,” he explains, downplaying its importance in the context of hell: “There is no problem in giving up on someone. Simply, a report is made.”
