A former Russian Lieutenant Colonel has revealed to the Express.co.uk the true extent of the horror and slaughter in Putin’s army. In a chilling description, he slammed the “bestial” treatment of troops by Putin’s generals, saying such behaviour had never been seen before in the history of Russia‘s army.
Sergey Gulyaev served many years as a high-ranking officer in the Soviet Army. As part of his military service, he spent two years with the 58th automobile brigade in Afghanistan during the 1980s.
Since leaving the army, he has become a political activist and strident Putin critic, as well as a renowned journalist.
Mr Gulyaev is still part of a Russian veterans’ group, which consists of former soldiers who have served from Afghanistan to Chechnya and beyond. As such he maintains close contacts with officers and soldiers in the Russian army and has relatives fighting in Ukraine.
He said Russia had practically seen two of its armies completely destroyed and that the death count was already at least ten times higher than in Afghanistan, where the Soviets lost 15,000 troops over a ten year period.
Ukraine‘s General Staff estimates that the Russians have lost almost 470,000 soldiers during the 26 months of fighting – either killed or injured.
Mr Gulyaev told the Express: “If we take the figures that Ukraine gives, then we have already lost one and a half armies. The first army entered and was all killed. The second mobilised army has now suffered losses approximately comparable to those of the first.”
The former senior officer has carried out his own research from open sources on Russian casualties and his findings have shocked him.
He highlighted the Udmurt Republic located in the Volga Federal district with a population of around one and half million people. His analysis has revealed that at least eight hundred Udmurts have died in just over two years of fighting.
“Almost a thousand people have died in this war from this one small region,” he said. “And this is in just two years of fighting. So, if you take the Afghan war, which lasted 10 years, 80 people from the entire republic died there.”
Figures obviously vary for the total death count to date for the Russian army. President Zelensky said in February some 180,000 Russians had died, while President Macron estimated 150,000.
The BBC along with the Meduza media outlet have been counting new graves in Russian cemeteries and scrolling through social media posts among relatives of soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
They currently conclude that the death toll has passed the 50,000 mark and that the body count was nearly 25 percent higher this year than last.
Mr Gulyaev revealed that troops in the rear were desperate not to be sent to the front because of the horrific conditions and the appalling treatment Russian soldiers are subjected to from their superiors.
He is in contact with officers serving in a mechanical repair unit located just behind the front lines. They told him they were praying not to be sent to the trenches.
“There is a completely different attitude towards front line soldiers,” he explained. “A soldier on the front line stays there for a week to 10 days. No one cares about these people, no one protects them. There is such a bestial attitude towards them, even from junior commanders. I have never seen this attitude towards soldiers in any war in Russia‘s history.”
The former Lieutenant Colonel said most Russian soldiers had no motivation to fight and that discipline is being maintained solely through brute force by so-called barrier troops who have orders to shoot deserters.
“Only under gunpoint do the soldiers move forward,” he said. “There is no understanding of why they are fighting there. Therefore, the morale of the Russian army today rests on the bayonets of The National Guard and other barrier detachments that stab these unfortunates in the back.”
The Russian army has recently opened a new front in the Kharkiv region, making its biggest territorial gains since the beginning of the war.
However Mr Gulyaev does not think the capture of Ukraine‘s second largest city is a realistic war aim for Putin’s army nor one of its priorities.
“I don’t believe that they will try to take Kharkiv. Most likely they will just try to bypass it. Kharkiv cannot be taken. It’s a huge city and is in effect a large fortress which Russia does not have the strength to take.”
He added that Putin’s priorities remained securing complete control over the entire Donbas and Zaporizhzhia regions and this is what they would push for during the summer.