Shortly after, Vladimir said he was transferred to the town of Bryansk in Luhansk, where he was held in a former school, which had been turned into a military base, with about 80 other soldiers from different units who had similarly refused to continue participating in the invasion. Vladimir said he was detained on 19 July and placed in a room with window bars where he was held without food with 25 other soldiers from his unit who also refused to fight. Vladimir, a soldier whose name has been changed at his request, said:Īs a result of what I believe were tactical and strategic mistakes made by my commanders … and their total disregard for human life … I made the decision not to continue in the military operation. In one written testimony sent to Russian prosecutors on 1 August and reviewed by the Guardian, a soldier described how, after refusing to return to the battlefield, he was jailed for more than a week in different cells in the Russian-controlled separatist Luhansk People’s Republic. In total, about 140 soldiers were held,” added Grebenyuk, who represented the soldiers. “We already have a list of 70 Russian soldiers who were held as prisoners. Maxim Grebenyuk, a lawyer who runs the Moscow-based advocacy organisation Military Ombudsman, said that at least four Russian soldiers had filed written complaints with the prosecutor general’s office, demanding punishment for the superiors who oversaw their detainment. A group of Russian soldiers have accused their commanders of jailing them in eastern Ukraine for refusing to take part in the war, in a rare public exposure of tensions inside the ranks of Russia’s army over the invasion.
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