More evidence that all is not well with Putin’s war against Ukraine and the toll it is having on many members of the Russian military: Ukrainian authorities published audio they say shows a Russian soldier complaining to his partner that he had been sent “to slaughter” during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Security Service of Ukraine shared audio of a conversation between a man and woman on Friday, and said it was a conversation between an “occupier” and his wife.
“Here, you know, they just send us to slaughter. It’s not a smart way at all,” the man’s voice says in the audio. It is not clear where in Ukraine the man was, or when the conversation took place.
He said that as he moves, Ukrainian soldiers are “waiting for you, watching, expecting you. They’ve adjusted guns to these fucking trenches. You reach there, some point, and they’re fucking watching you!”
He said that Ukraine’s ability to fire from far away meant he and his fellow soldiers could not respond in kind.
“They just sit drinking coffee and press buttons — and just throw shells on you.”
“Where do you shoot? Whom do you shoot? There’s f*cking no one. F*ck knows. And here you’re rushing around like an a*shole.
“So many of our tanks have been burned here, so many pieces of equipment, damn it.
“And our f*ckheads can’t even hit them. They can’t fucking locate them. Our fucking brainless brigade. Our army. These fucking asshole commanders . Every day, people die here. Just for fucking nothing.”
The woman then responded, saying he needs to fire back with a tank. But he said that the Ukrainians are too far away.
“What the hell. They start firing at you from three to four kilometers away. Where are you going to shoot from a tank?”
The woman then asked: “Don’t you have such equipment?”
He responded: “We don’t have specialists, damn it,” and she replied “Fuck.”
“No specialists. They fucking fire,” the man continues. “They’ve probably thrown 20 carriages of projectiles into fucking nothing.”
The audio shared by Ukraine then ended.
Ukraine’s long-range weapons
Ukraine has been intercepting some Russian audio since Russia began its invasion in February. Some Russian soldiers have been using unencrypted communications.
It is not clear what Ukrainian weapons the Russian soldier was describing, but western allies have in recent weeks sent long-range weapons to Ukraine after repeated requests from Kyiv, saying they would greatly aid its fight against Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that weapons from Western countries were allowing Ukraine to push back against Russian assaults.
The weapons included High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) missiles sent by the US, which Ukraine said last week was used to kill a Russian general.
The US Department of Defense said HIMARS is “making an impact” in helping Ukraine’s military.
Despite Western help, Russia appears to have a bigger weapons supply than Ukraine.
Sinéad Baker is a News Reporter based in Business Insider’s (where this first appeared) London bureau. Sinéad most often covers breaking news, US politics, and global censorship. She has covered developments within the Trump administration, written about terrorist attacks in real-time worldwide, and delved into the aftermath of aviation disasters.
