Even Russian military leadership was shocked to learn of the mayhem and dysfunction among Vladimir Putin’s troops in occupied eastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian intelligence.
In a five-minute recording shared by the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry on Thursday, a man identified as a fighter in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic can be heard complaining to his wife that “Russians are fucking imbeciles” and revealing that his fellow fighters raped and murdered civilians.
No details were provided on when the phone call was said to have taken place, or where exactly in Donetsk the man was based.
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“Basically, today our guys went to the Russian headquarters,” said the man, who was not identified by name. “They are not aware that there are so few of us here... They all think that we’re professionals, that we’ve been fighting since 2014 and we’re already experts, that we’re badass fucking warriors,” he said.
“They raised the question about us not having a rotation, and not having weapons, nothing,” he went on. “Basically, they promised that within three days, some fucking Russian bogeys will come... they promised to change us out, the generals didn’t even know what kind of situation we had here,” he added, complaining that “we are almost down 50 fucking percent.”
The fighter recalled an incident where he said a group of Russian troops were sent to back up their fellow Russians, but then both sides “started to shell the fuck out of each other, Russians with fucking Russians, they fucking killed each other.”
The wife then asked about the fate of an acquaintance, who the man told her was being interrogated along with several others in connection with a string of recent executions.
“Lena, he gunned down 75 people, you understand? Both locals and our guys,” he said, going on to recall how two of those shot were fighters who “raped a 55-year-old woman and beat the shit out of her husband” before returning days later to terrorize the pair again and shoot them.
“Our guys buried them,” he said.
“Maybe they are lucky that they are there, even though they’re being questioned they’re sitting in a quiet and calm place... They have already shot several people who raped, murdered, and buried people,” he said, telling his wife he was referring specifically to those from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.
“There’s a fuck ton happening here that you don’t know about,” he said.
His wife then recalls that when reports first broke of Russian troops raping people in Ukraine, the claims were dismissed as “fake,” with Russian sources claiming “the Russian Army is not capable of that.”
“It turns out they are capable,” she tells her husband, who quickly shoots back: “They are capable of anything.”
