Russian soldier says commander shot himself escaping Ukraine because ‘they will kill us all’ – World News

Audio released by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry appears to show a disaffected Russian soldier telling his mother about his commander’s desperate attempt to end the war

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A Russian rebel commander allegedly turned a gun on himself to evade the war in Ukraine, audio of an intercepted military conversation seems to confirm.

One soldier told his mother in the call that his leader shot himself in the leg to get out of the conflict. The recordings have now been released by the Main Intelligence Directory of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

About 40,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, captured or reported missing since the beginning of the devastating war.

The man, identified only as Nikita, is heard also saying he wants out too, complaining about the invasion and his commander’s apparent refusal to continue.

“I don’t care at all about this Ukraine war, I have to come back and quit,” he was heard saying and reporting, according to a translation of Business Insider The Independent.

“Mom, the commander of my second platoon battery shot himself in the leg at the very beginning to get out of here! What are we talking about here anyway? He served in Chechnya.”

The woman then asks the man who will defend Russia should the West advance.

“Who, tell me? They will just kill us all, there will be a fourth world war and Russia will lose in it,” he continued.

“Well, then maybe Putin will think twice.”

The publication confirmed that they could not verify the veracity of the call.

But it’s not just wiretapped conversations that have been the subject of much reporting lately.

In another call, the Daily Beast reported on Friday that a soldier’s wife told her husband to “fall off a tank” to stop participating in the war.

“There is no way out,” she said, according to Ukrainian intelligence records.

“Otherwise you’ll be there until September. They will not exchange you because everyone refuses.”

The soldier replied, “Well, sure, what stupid f*** would come here?”

“You just don’t have to shoot yourself in the leg because who the hell knows how that would end.

“I don’t fucking know! Because you could go straight home from the hospital.”

Last week, The Guardian reported that an angry soldier from an elite brigade in the Russian army refused to accept a second deployment to Ukraine.

“A lot of us just didn’t want to go back,” said Dmitri, a member of the unit, who asked not to be identified.

“I want to go back to my family – and not in a coffin.”