More than 100 Russian national guards have been fired for refusing to fight in Ukraine, according to court documents, in what appears to be the clearest indication so far of dissent among some parts of the security forces over the invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine for Moscow.
The cases of the 115 National Guardsmen, a force also known as Rosgvardia, came to light on Wednesday after a Russian local court rejected their class action lawsuit challenging their previous dismissal.
According to the court’s decision, published on its website, the lawsuit was dismissed after the judge ruled that the soldiers had been legitimately fired for “refusing to perform an official task” to fight in Ukraine, and instead went return to an office location.
The appeal took place in Nalchik, the capital of the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in the Russian Caucasus, where the unit is headquartered.
Since Moscow’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, its army has been plagued by morale, with reports of soldiers saying they did not know they were going to war until they crossed into Ukraine.
The Pentagon said this month that it had seen “anecdotal reports” that “middle-ranking officers at various levels, even up to the battalion level,” had “refused to obey orders” or disobeyed the measure. expected of “probity”.
Andrei Sabinin, the lawyer representing the 115 soldiers, said the court’s decision was “unprecedented” given the complexity of the case.
“I express doubts about the fairness of the process as a whole because my clients were denied the summons of certain witnesses and several documents were rejected by the court.”
According to Sabinin, the commanders of the Rosgvardia unit offered the soldiers the option not to fight and their dismissal was illegal.
Russia created Rosgvardia, a militarized force separate from the army, in 2016 to fight terrorism and maintain law and order. Since its inception, members of Rosgvardia, often known as Vladimir Putin’s “private army,” have been largely involved in cracking down on peaceful anti-government protests.
Military analysts have linked Russia’s heavy use of Russian troops in Ukraine to Moscow’s strategic goals of capturing and detaining major Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv and the capital, Kyiv. These plans failed, while Rosgvard units suffered heavy casualties after Ukrainian cities remained as battlefields instead of being captured by Russia, leaving Rosgvard units exposed to Ukrainian attacks.
Documents obtained by The Guardian on Friday in a separate criminal case against a Siberian journalist further reveal Rosgvardia’s role in Ukraine.
Mikhail Afanasyev, the editor-in-chief of Novy Fokus in the Russian region of Khakassia, was arrested by security forces last month over reports from the website of a separate Rosgvardia unit that also rejected deployment in Ukraine. .
Judicial testimony given by members of the Rosgvard unit mentioned in Afanasyev’s report confirms previous reports that 11 Rosgvard of Khakassia refused to fight.
Witnesses also give weight to suggestions that the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine was initially intended as a blitzkrieg attack on Kyiv with the aim of capturing the capital.
In a testimony, a Roskgvardia soldier told the court that his commander ordered his unit three days before the invasion to send them to Ukraine to “patrol the streets and intersections of Kyiv.”
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“The commander explained that all employees of the Russian National Guard and Armed Forces were assigned specific tasks during the special operation in Ukraine. The task of our detachment and all other detachments that were stationed with we were watching over the streets and intersections of Kyiv, “the witness said.
The contents of the court documents were first reported by the independent regional media Tayga.info.
A month after the war, Moscow was forced to change its offensive to more limited targets after facing strong Ukrainian resistance, with the army prioritizing what it called the “liberation” of the region. Donbas.
But despite the recent series of military successes in the Donbas, the Kremlin has faced two rare incidents of public dissent this week by Russian officials.
On Wednesday, Boris Bondarev, a career diplomat on a Russian mission to the UN in Geneva, became the highest-ranking Russian diplomat to denounce the war, and published a scathing letter in which he wrote that he was “ashamed. “of his country and called the invasion a ‘disaster’. And on Friday, two communist lawmakers from Khabarovsky Krai, in the far east of Siberia, urged Putin to end the conflict in Ukraine.
“If our country does not stop the military operation, there will be even more orphans in our country,” said lawmaker Leonid Vasyukevich, according to a video of the meeting.
“During a military operation, people become disabled. They are young people who can be of great use to our country,” he said. “We demand the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops.”