1/ Several Russian officers who refused orders to carry out suicidal attacks in Ukraine were imprisoned by their own side in July 2022. Their relatives have heard nothing from them since. Now they are trying to discover what has happened to them. ⬇️ 
2/ The independent Russian media outlet ASTRA reports on the cases of the five, who all served separately in different parts of Ukraine before being imprisoned in a basement in Brianka in the 'Luhansk People's Republic' (LNR) after refusing to participate further in hostilities.
3/ Their last message to their relatives said: "We were brought to some abandoned unit in the LNR, brought down to the basement, guarded, it was damp, there was nowhere to sleep, just a bare floor, no food or water, and we were told to stay here until further notice."
4/ One of the five, Senior Lieutenant Ruslan Levanov, told his mother that after arriving in Ukraine in June, he and his men had already been encircled twice, "went out, withdrew personnel, then went into battle again, came out with losses and refused to repeat the move."
5/ His mother says: "He had an order to take the objective at any cost. To take by numbers, without any military tactics, without improvised means." His commanders called the men "expendable material" and issued orders from their bunker, rather than leading them.
6/ When Levanov requested fire support from a TOS-1A thermobaric rocket launcher, his mother says that one of the commanders "would throw a lighter at my son's feet: "Go, puppy, set fire to the forest yourself."" The commander subsequently ran away during an engagement.
7/ Levanov subsequently wrote a report refusing to lead his personnel back into battle and asked to be dismissed from the army "due to disappointment in the armed forces of the Russian Federation".
8/ Another officer, Dmitry Volkov, emerged from a battle on the Kherson front with only "7 fighters out of 30 left." Despite these losses, he was immediately sent back. "He said that he had no one to fight with, they had no ammunition, the equipment was out of order.
9/ They told him to go there anyway, they sent him to certain death. He decided to withdraw the fighters who survived and refuse to carry out this order."
Volkov and his men made it to Russian-held Khakovka, where they were detained by their own side.
Volkov and his men made it to Russian-held Khakovka, where they were detained by their own side.
10/ Senior Lieutenant Alexander Svechikhin became a 'refusenik' for a different reason – so few were left in his unit that he wanted to be transferred to another unit, the battalion to which he had originally been assigned when he was sent to Ukraine.
11/ The three officers, plus Senior Lieutenants Dmitry Shcherbinkin and Sergei Ivanov [surname changed], were taken to a "Center for the restoration of combat stability of military personnel" in Brianka. The head of the unit is a Colonel Oleg Nechiporenko.
12/ Nechiporenko has previously been identified as the deputy head of the 51st Air Defence Division for military-political work (in other words, he is a senior political officer). He has been reported to have pressured refuseniks into joining the Wagner mercenary group.
13/ The officers were subjected to severe psychological pressure in Brianka. According to Levanov's mother, "He was told: either [go back] to the front line in the thick of it, to the assault detachment, or to prison." On 10 July, they were taken to a basement prison.
14/ The worried relatives had no further contact and demanded answers about their loved ones' fate. They were told that by a political officer that “everything is fine and the guys returned to duty” as part of the 57th brigade, though further details weren't provided.
15/ They subsequently learned that the 57th brigade was a mixed formation of regular Russian military – principally refuseniks – and Wagner mercenaries, with Wagner apparently in charge. According to Levanov's mother:
16/ "The [private military contractors] work under the auspices of the 57th Brigade. All refuseniks – soldiers who run away from illegal orders – are brought to Brianka.
17/ There the deputy commandant Goryushkin – after processing them physically and psychologically - sends them to detachments. At that time there were 10 units. They are beaten there, frightened of reprisals.
18/ I talked to more than a dozen guys during this time, and they all can't lie. The guys agree to go to the front line because there is no way out. They saw how they [the officers] were taken out of Brianka in a Kamaz truck.
19/ They said they were allegedly being taken to an investigation. And none of them [those who agreed to return to the front line as part of PMCs - Astra] saw them again, although they were in the Wagner PMC units."
20/ Soon afterwards, Dmitry Shcherbinkin's relatives were told he had been killed on 23 July by "a direct hit by a 152 mm shell in an open area." The rest, according to army documents, were alive and well and “performing tasks” – but this turned out to be untrue.
21/ The army claimed in August that Volkov, Levanov, Svechikhin and Ivanov had all fled and were being sought for "unauthorized abandonment of the unit". Meanwhile, it was unable to produce any evidence for the relatives that the five had voluntarily returned to the front line.
22/ A new story emerged in September: the army now claimed that all five men had likely been killed in an ammunition explosion caused by Ukrainian shelling against Wagner positions.
23/ "Due to the detonation of ammunition, the building was completely destroyed. According to eyewitnesses, there were 5 people in the building, and the whereabouts of the servicemen have not been established so far.”
24/ According to another man who was in Brianka at the same time of the missing officers, those being held there were taken into the forest by commanders of the 57th brigade and threatened with death if they did not return to the front line.
25/ "People in masks arrived, blindfolded us, tied our hands, threw us [in the basement], kept us there for two or three days with our hands tied. Those who did not agree were beaten. They threatened us with weapons.
26/ They made it clear that either we will go there [to the front line], or nowhere at all, they would kill you and no one would look for you. The war will write off everything, as they say.
There were six of us who refused to the last, but in the end everyone agreed.
There were six of us who refused to the last, but in the end everyone agreed.
27/ We were unarmed. They knew they could shoot. And we were taken back to the 57th. At night. We spent the night there, and we were divided into groups. I think the route was the same for everyone."
28/ According to another man who went through Brianka, "[Colonel] Nechiporenko immediately offered us to join the 'Wagner' PMC, I refused. Then he offered the Tula paratrooper division. Soon I realized that if you refuse without any good reason, you'll be taken to the PMCs.
29/ A day or two later they would collect 20 people who refused and, as a rule, at about 5 or 6 o'clock they were driven to an unknown destination. People who came out of there told me that there were two basements: in one of them they beat people up and in the other they didn't.
30/ According to the people who were there, the [guards] were PMCs. Then I met with a comrade, he was there and recognised one of the guards as an FSB man from Crimea, a counter-intelligence agent."
31/ Officers received especially harsh treatment. "It was always harder for them. It's just that if you're an officer, you're a specialist. They were simply torn apart. Representatives of different parts, different divisions came there.
32/ And it was like at the draft - that is, they "bought" you. Most often paratroopers and PMCs came. And those who didn't agree were taken to the pit.
There they broke guys both physically and morally. NKVD methods. I didn't see a single guy who came back from there.
There they broke guys both physically and morally. NKVD methods. I didn't see a single guy who came back from there.
33/ Afterwards they found themselves in the front line, where they didn't survive more than a week. And if they did refuse, they were taken to the woods or fields. Then think for yourself [about what happened then]."
34/ Although the relatives are continuing their search, a soldier who says he knew the missing Senior Lieutenant Shcherbinkin is blunt about the officers' likely fate: "Bro, they won't be found anymore. They are not easy to find.
35/ Or they will find them after the war, I don't know how. They said they were missing. Well, they fucking died. Now the PMCs are fighting with prisoners alone, they are unlikely to have survived. Because the zeks [convicts] break those who refuse." /end
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