In an intercepted telephone conversation newly released by Ukrainian intelligence (HUR), a Russian woman talks about the suicide of a serviceman in the Russian army after being ordered to fight against Ukraine.
“I was at a funeral yesterday. Lenka Fomenko’s Dima hung himself,” the woman says.
The woman said that the deceased had been working as a postal worker assigned to Kamchatka but had come on leave to Grayvoron – a town in Russia’s Belgorod region.
“He was told, ‘Take your leave, after the leave go to the SVO [“Special Military Operation” being Russia’s term for its war in Ukraine]. He came on leave, stayed for three days, and hung himself,” the woman says.
Discord over commanders’ unrealistic goals and extremely hazardous combat tasks appears to be growing among Russian soldiers.
In a number of conversations recently intercepted by HUR, soldiers discuss ways to give up serving and avoid further deployment to the front line while civilians panic about being conscripted.
For example, a Russian soldier was overheard on a phone call revealing that a portion of Moscow’s battalion had defied orders and was currently “idle in the forest, not engaged in combat.”
In another instance, Russian soldiers were complaining about not being given leave in almost two years and saying that “soon we’ll gather a crowd and head towards Russia.”
Back in December of 2023, Alexander Shpilevoy, mobilized from Voronezh, recorded a video calling for the rotation of military personnel and an end to hostilities in Ukraine.
Three weeks later, that he was confined in a penal guards’ facility or “punishment pit” in the Luhansk region.
Earlier this year, Kyiv Post interviewed Maria* who works as one of Ukrainian intelligence’s professional eavesdroppers and spoke about the shocking things she hears.
Russia regularly dismisses the content of intercepted calls published by Ukraine, saying they are faked, a claim Kyiv Post put to Maria. She said: “Yes, they all are real even though they might seem insane. Sometimes I can’t believe the words I’m hearing myself, but we have what we have.”
Kyiv Post regularly reposts some of the most revealing and shocking intercepted conversations. Check out more intercepted conversations:
- ‘Talk to This ‘Ukrop’ and Erase Him’ – Russian Commander Orders Execution of POW
- Russian Soldier Complains of Using Civilian Trucks to Transport North Koreans
- ‘The Chinese Are Here’ – Russian Troops React to North Korean Arrival
- ‘I Need to Get the Hell Out of Here’ – Russian Soldier Fears for His Life
- ‘I’d Rather Be Dead’ – Russian Soldier Says Commanders Flee and Own Snipers Kill Them
- ‘We Bury Them Right There’ – Russian on Moscow’s Tactic to Avoid Paying for Fallen Soldiers
- ‘Kyiv Never Bombed and Russians Are Dying’ – Russian Wife Complains About Kremlin
- ‘What Are You Even Bragging About?’ - Russian Soldier’s Wife Slams Kremlin for Displaying Captured Weapons
- ‘Half a Battalion Escaped to The Forest’ – Russian Soldier Blamed for Mass Refusal to Fight
- ‘The Assault Failed, Everyone Was Killed’ – Russian Soldier Reveals Horrific Losses, Possibly at Avdiivka
- ‘150,000 Men Will Be Thrown In’ – Russian Soldier Reveals Fears of ‘Huge’ Ukrainian Crimea Liberation Force