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Retreating Russians leave their comrades' bodies behind

56 Comments
By ADAM SCHRECK and VASILISA STEPANENKO

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The Russian conscription plan ;

day 1 - recruitment

day 2 - training

day 3 - deployment

day 4 - death or surrender

31 ( +37 / -6 )

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the military has recruited more than 200,000 reservists as part of the partial mobilization launched two weeks ago. He said the recruits were undergoing training at 80 firing ranges before being deployed to the front lines in Ukraine.

I think they may need a bit more training than how to fire a gun. Unfortunately for Russia, they disbanded most of their training facilities so that the trainers could fight in Ukraine.

29 ( +32 / -3 )

Looks like the Russian collapse in Kherson hast started in earnest now, so everyone please by extra nice to the Putin fanboys when they get in this morning as they are likely going to be feeling a little down.

24 ( +28 / -4 )

“We will wait for the incumbent president to change his position or wait for a future Ukrainian president who would revise his stand in the interests of the Ukrainian people,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Funny, because I think that Zelensky is waiting for a new president in Russia. The incumbent is showing signs of madness.

23 ( +28 / -5 )

The suffering, horrors and privations of the brave Ukrainian people are almost unimaginable to those of us in the West. Let us all hope that they will prevail over the evil and deranged Putin. Soon.

Give the Ukrainians all of the weapons they ask for and need.

21 ( +25 / -4 )

Standard procedure for the russian army to abandon their dead, they have left them all over Ukraine since 24/2/22, they are just disposable cattle to their leaders and officers. They don’t even have dog tags or anything equivalent to allow them to be identified. Their enemies take more care for the russian dead than their own army does.

Their deploying and probably losing their experienced training cadre’s are going to seriously hamper any efforts to turn their recently mobilised men into anything approaching effective combat soldiers (good). Not to mention trying to deal with the next regular round of conscription now delayed no doubt due to this until November.

21 ( +24 / -3 )

War is ugly. That’s why it’s best not to start one. Keep pounding, Ukraine, and thank you for your sacrifice.

19 ( +22 / -3 )

The desertion of not only those KIA but also the wounded is a reflection of poor training and a lack of ingrained military commitment of "leaving no one behind." There is also the financial aspect, Putin has to pay the family of those KIA, so no repatriation of a corpse, means MIA and no payment. That's why Russian families are contacting Ukrainian organizations who track Russian prisoners so that they can get information on their loved ones that their own government won't provide.

17 ( +19 / -2 )

Shouldn't JT advise of distressing images at the top of the story?

-7 ( +10 / -17 )

Bringing back your dead, would mean sending them back to their families, and if that starts happening, people in Russia will find out that so many Russians died fighting this pointless war.

18 ( +21 / -3 )

After the failed Kherson offensive...

Oh, wait.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

“as it struggles to hang on to four regions of Ukraine that it illegally annexed last week.”

Leaving fallen comrades behind to rot in the streets. A classic pincer maneuver?

It’s not easy running in flip flops.

8 ( +13 / -5 )

While I wish the Ukrainians well in reclaiming their land from the Invaders, I feel sorry for all those who died on both sides to satisfy the narcissistic wonts of Putin. The tyrant has so much blood on his hands.

19 ( +22 / -3 )

Do people honestly believe Russia is losing this fight? They're taking land, and yet they are losing? If this is losing, I'd hate to see what winning is like...

-25 ( +3 / -28 )

Pharaoh - what land has Russia taken in the last three months? They have lost a bunch and will continue to lose more. Are you even keeping up with the maps?

13 ( +18 / -5 )

Bringing back your dead, would mean sending them back to their families, and if that starts happening, people in Russia will find out that so many Russians died fighting this pointless war.

spot on !

firstly, Putin doesn’t want the citizens to know the real number of young men who have been killed & how badly his war is going.

secondly, Putin doesn’t want to pay out promised death bonuses to the families of the dead

16 ( +18 / -2 )

I sincerely hope that I live to see the day when Vladimir Putin is stripped of his power and tried as a war crminal. Either by an International Tribunal or the Russians themselves.

19 ( +23 / -4 )

a) Such honor by the Russian military. Impressive. NOT!

b) Prevents the Russian military from saying to the families their relative is dead. This way they can be fighting or missing. Ninja'd by 2020hindsights.

c) saves on body bags, travel expenses, and, most importantly, Russian govt embarrassment, since they aren't allowed any outside news with the truth back into the state-controlled media inside Russia. Of course, there will always be RT conspiracy theorists posting here with some "whatabout" or "projection" attempts to derail the facts.

14 ( +16 / -2 )

Why have Russia not updated their casualties since early March?

12 ( +15 / -3 )

What else can they do? Of course Russians will have to leave the bodies of their comrades behind. And they do not even have time to bury them.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Putin is stripped of his power and tried as a war crminal. 

as much as I’d love to see this happen, I doubt it ever will. He’ll go the same way as hitler, or Mussolini

15 ( +16 / -1 )

History will repeat.

you are correct - the invaders (that’s Russia this time) will be defeated, & many Russians will have died.

14 ( +16 / -2 )

Why have Russia not updated their casualties since early March?

they can’t count that high

15 ( +17 / -2 )

Thank you for the graphic pictures. Understanding quite clearly the horrors of war is important.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Anim@ls do this sort of thing.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

day 4 - death or surrender

The Ukraine government has a phone number Russian soldiers can call to arrange a safe surrender. They are receiving calls from recently conscripted Russian men on their way to training.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russians-calling-ukraine-hotline-ask-how-surrender-ukraine-mod-says-2022-9?op=1

14 ( +15 / -1 )

Shouldn't leave anyone behind

At first, the southern front was a misdirection while they sucker-punched Russia in the north, but now it seems the southern front has become a real offensive after all

What's happening in Russia is like what's happened in the US with Vietnam. Ya know what happens when ya send hastily-trained draftees to the battlefield

10 ( +11 / -1 )

Do people honestly believe Russia is losing this fight? They're taking land, and yet they are losing? If this is losing, I'd hate to see what winning is like...

Sorry, our records indicate that this argument expired in August and is no longer valid. Please consult your local Russian propoganda service provider about updating to a more current set of specious arguments and have a nice day.

18 ( +19 / -1 )

Nothing ruins morale like troops getting left behind alive and abandoned when they fall.

It really tells them what their value to the state is.

15 ( +16 / -1 )

A big difference is that many Russian soldiers have little to no will to fight in this war. It's truly sad that they are being sent to fight for a cause they don't believe in. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is in fairy tale land celebrating the results of their play referendum.

This is a war. People die. It is not over. 26 million Russians died in WW2 but in the end they defeated the Nazis. History will repeat.

15 ( +16 / -1 )

This is a war. People die. It is not over. 26 million Russians died in WW2 but in the end they defeated the Nazis. History will repeat.

In some ways history does repeat. In WWII Russia was invaded by the Germans and was able to prevail over them by virtue of the massive amount of aircraft, weapons, fuel and raw materials shipped to Russia from the US and Canada in often deadly naval convoys to Murmansk through the Lend-Lease program. The Germans had to get by on their own insufficient resources and were unable to keep the land they captured early on.

Today Russia is in the position of Germany invading another nation while Ukraine is defending its soil with the considerable resources of the US and the other western democracies behind them providing them arms though todays iteration of Lend-Lease. Russia is relying on its own insufficient resources and is losing the territory it captured early on.

16 ( +18 / -2 )

It's hard to carry bodies back to Russia when, lacking enough military vehicles to do so, the soldiers have to steal cars and stuff themselves inside to retreat.

13 ( +15 / -2 )

Russia's effort to incorporate the four embattled regions in Ukraine's east and south was done so hastily that even the exact borders of the territories being absorbed were unclear.

The Kremlin even admitted they don't even know where their borders would be. What kind of clusterf- that sham referendum was - when ya don't even know what is the state of what you're trying to annex

Putin put himself in a corner by acting hastily and recklessly. By proclaiming the invaded territories as Russian states and drawing a red line, and that red line is crumbling and being punched through, it's backfiring on him when he's now losing "Russian states"

12 ( +13 / -1 )

They don’t seem to need more training in running or dying.

Run or die, little orcs. Your choice and we don’t really care which you choose.

6 ( +9 / -3 )

Nice propaganda piece ...

-16 ( +1 / -17 )

Putin is killing his own people for his own fetishes. No man left behind.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

They don’t seem to need more training in running or dying.

All they need to remember is the number of that Ukrainian hot line.

12 ( +15 / -3 )

History will repeat.

Yes, I think the history Putin is repeating is that of Mussolini.

Like Putin, Mussolini was a militaristic ultra nationalist who vastly overestimated the strength of his own armies and ordered them to invade other countries in order to fulfill his dreams of resurrecting the imperial past of his country.

In 1941 he invaded Greece, a much much smaller country. The Greeks smashed the Italian army to pieces, forcing them into an embarrassing retreat that was only halted when the Germans intervened. He also ordered his armies to invade Egypt from Libya, with a manpower advantage of about 9:1. His army was crushed there too, again only saved from complete annihilation by German intervention.

The Russian performance in Ukraine today is very "Italian army in Greece in 1941" style.

Eventually the Italians sickened of him throwing his armies away on futile attempts at imperial conquest and overthrew him. Maybe that is what Putin has in store for him. I don't know.

14 ( +15 / -1 )

It really tells them what their value to the state is.

Conscripts are being told to bring their own sleeping bag and first aid kits with them. The Russian Army is not providing recruits with either! Soldiers are zip tying their first aid kits closed due to the amount of theft going on among their own, which can slow down accessing the first aid kit in a medical emergency while the zip ties are cut off.

9 ( +12 / -3 )

Today Russia is in the position of Germany invading another nation while Ukraine is defending its soil with the considerable resources of the US and the other western democracies behind them providing them arms though todays iteration of Lend-Lease. Russia is relying on its own insufficient resources and is losing the territory it captured early on.

In a similar way, Russia is acting like Hitler Germany was. Germany's argument in trying to annex the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia was that they're trying to save the German people who lived in Sudetenland - even though it was the German separatists who were stirring up trouble in Sudetenland to give Hitler an excuse to send troops there. And whenever there would be meetings with the Czechs for an agreement, Hitler and the German separatists would keep raising the ante each time so that no agreement could ever be met.

But then against the Czechs' wishes, Western Europe practiced appeasement with Hitler and gave up Sudetenland. And then ya know how well that went with Hitler

(As they say, if ya don't learn from history............)

11 ( +12 / -1 )

An army not taking care or showing any respect to its dead? It sounds like the Russians have no pride or spirit. No wonder they’re falling apart.

8 ( +10 / -2 )

This has been going on since the invasion. Dead soldiers are not counted but only listed as MIA's. It makes the war easier to swallow for Russians...

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Russian nuclear submarine armed with 'doomsday' weapon disappears from Arctic harbor: report

https://www.foxnews.com/world/russian-nuclear-submarine-armed-doomsday-weapon-disappears-arctic-harbor-report

5 ( +6 / -1 )

As far as I’ve heard this is only true for the very lowest ranks or soldiers, but which of course is the majority on the battlefield. They are all treated like garbage, when dead but also like nameless slaves and cannon fodder when still alive. The procedure for the few higher ranks and officers very much differs. Their bodies are collected and given to the families for burying, followed by a little compensation money and official public honoring in the media.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Russian nuclear submarine armed with 'doomsday' weapon disappears from Arctic harbor: report

Doesn't mean NATO ASW forces aren't tracking it.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

This has been going on since the invasion. Dead soldiers are not counted but only listed as MIA's. It makes the war easier to swallow for Russians...

That doesn't work forever. At some point families want to know where their children are. When enough families ask and are not receiving good answers things will get ugly for the Russian government.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

Any army that is beating a hasty retreat or being routed will leave some of their warriors on the field. That is what happened to Ukraine in the beginning of the war and that is what is happening to Russia now. Nobody wants to leave their comrades behind, but sometimes it is just impossible to recover the bodies.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Horrible photos showing the reality of war.

Awful

6 ( +8 / -2 )

I do not see the need to post photos of dead soldiers. They all have families and friends even if they died fighting in a foreign country.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

When I look at a picture like this, it is absolutely horrible.

Nobody, especially not parents, whose children were sent to war by these insane, full of madness Regime in Russia, want to see such a photo.

But pictures like these will always remind as what the Russians started.

And now, the Russians paying their price for what they started.

They are now paying their price for starting this mass murdering, for killing thousands of innocent Ukraine people including women and children, torturing them and even raping young Girls.

Rest in Peace to that soldier.

And I hope that the Russians who see photos like that do finally wake up and see what their insane Regime is doing to them and in what they are drawn into by their full of madness regime.

12 ( +12 / -0 )

Wallace,if Russian destroyed Kiev airport ,it would set back Ukraine 50 years,you cannot have any viable country, without commercials airport

-20 ( +0 / -20 )

Wallace,the US Senate will never approve Ukraine membership to NATO,do you think Zelensky is delusional they will

-21 ( +0 / -21 )

Ukraine, Sweden, Switerzland, and Finland will join NATO. Ukraine will join the EU.

12 ( +13 / -1 )

Wallace,you cannot join without American consent,if Democrats will not confirm, Republicans sure will not,I am American,I know the gentle sentiment of American people,I deal with American all day

-17 ( +0 / -17 )

Just a fleeing mob of war criminals. Is anybody really surprised?

11 ( +11 / -0 )

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