KEY POINTS

  • Ukrainian authorities obtained the information through an intercepted phone call 
  • The conscripts were loaded onto KAMAZ trucks and driven to the frontline in Ukraine
  • Some conscripts returned home on foot

The Russian government has tricked conscripts into joining the war in Ukraine by bringing them to the frontlines despite promising to send them home, a new recording revealed.

In one unit of the Russian military, conscripts were loaded onto KAMAZ trucks and promised that they would be driven to the airport where they could book a flight home. However, the KAMAZ trucks brought the conscripts to the frontline in Ukraine, according to a recording of an intercepted phone call released by the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

“Many, many people wrote reports. They were loaded onto KAMAZ trucks, and it was like, we’ll drive you to the airport to send you home. And they were heading for Ukraine in these closed KAMAZ trucks,” the wife of a Russian soldier told him in the phone call. “They realized on the way and started jumping right out of the vehicle, because there was a tank at the head of the convoy. Then the firing into the air started.”

The woman, whose identity was not revealed, added that some of the conscripts returned on foot. Conscripts who approached law enforcement agencies to report the incident were also allegedly held for several days.

The Chief Intelligence Directorate did not specify when or where the phone call was intercepted. The International Business Times could not independently verify the claims.

The audio recording comes after Vadym Skibitskyi, a spokesman for the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine's Defense Ministry, said the Russian army is recruiting prisoners with combat experience to join the war in Ukraine amid suffering massive military losses.

Since the war began in February, the Russian army has lost 38,550 soldiers, according to estimates from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

Mamuka Mamulashvii, the commander of the Georgian Legion fighting alongside Ukrainian troops in the war, attributed the high number of deaths in the Russian army to a lack of professionalism and preparation. Mamulashvii also said corruption in the Russian army is helping Ukrainians fight back in the war.

In contrast, Russian lawmakers Konstantin Kosachev and Irina Yarovaya blamed Moscow’s military losses on Ukraine’s “drugged up” superhuman troops.

Many of the Ukrainians who have swelled the ranks of the army following the invasion have received training in a forest previously occupied by Russian soldiers
Many of the Ukrainians who have swelled the ranks of the army following the invasion have received training in a forest previously occupied by Russian soldiers AFP / Sergei SUPINSKY
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