Russian soldier Petro Chalkin from occupied Yenakiieve in Donetsk Oblast has described how his wounded comrades were literally driven insane by the lack of medical care. Some even blew themselves up out of torment.
“But that’s only if you have a grenade,” said the soldier, who fought on the side of the Russian invaders and was captured by Ukrainian Defense Forces, the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces report.
The Ukrainian says that he would never have gone to fight if he had not been captured. Chalkin adds that he was just a worker.
"Dig in deeper”
According to the prisoner, the Russian command essentially abandons soldiers like him, causing them to lose their minds from pain and die from infections.
“There were cases where the wounds were rotting, and maggots had appeared. And over the radio, they’d say, ‘Dig in deeper’… So many corpses. It feels like a whole battalion is lying there,” Chalkin recalls.
On 10 November, the US-based Institute for the Study of War reported that Russia began an involuntary partial call-up of reservists in at least 19 Russian regions. Although Russian officials claimed that reservists would serve only in their home regions, contracts include no legal geographic limits, according to the experts.
