9.06.2023 – Translated from Russian (BBC Russian Branch) via Google
On May 28, when Russia celebrated the Day of the Border Guard, Lieutenant of the Russian Aerospace Forces Dmitry Mishov illegally crossed the border with one of the Baltic countries. On May 30, he met with BBC Special Correspondent Ilya Barabanov in Vilnius and explained why he did not want to participate in Russian aggression against Ukraine, how he had been trying to leave the Russian army for more than a year, and what the military thought about the daily reports from General Igor Konashenkov. On the day of the publication of this interview, Mishov turned himself in to the Lithuanian migration authorities.
In a small hotel room, we meet a 26-year-old young man who is in Europe for the first time. He says that he walks around Vilnius in the evenings, and asks with concern: “They don’t ask for a passport here if you go to the museum?” It is still illegal in the country.
“I’m Dmitry Andreevich Mishov. By rank, he is a lieutenant,” he introduces himself succinctly. We are talking about military unit No. 44440 in a small town in the Pskov region. This is the 15th Army Aviation Brigade, which has been taking part in the Russian invasion of Ukraine since the first day of the war. The brigade is armed with Ka-52, Mi-28N and Mi-35M, Mi-26 and Mi-8MTV-5.
“I hoped, of course, that this would not happen, would not happen. But there were all indications that this would happen,” Mishov recalls the last pre-war months. “Back in November [2021], we began reconnaissance of border territories. for some reason, put armor plates on helicopters for exercises. Usually, before the exercises, in part, all this was not done.
So the military realized that war was coming.
“Five boards and two crews”
On the night of February 24, when Vladimir Putin announced the start of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Dmitry Mishov was sleeping in a barracks in Belarus. He woke up from a message that he needed to fly to Gostomel near Kiev. As a result, the flight was canceled due to losses: “That’s when they said that there were no losses, on the very first day my classmate died. Five planes and two crews were lost there.”
Understanding what was going on, Mishov filed a report on his dismissal from the armed forces on January 21, 2022, but did not have time to leave before the start of the war, which is why he ended up in Belarus. Dmitry says that he did not take part in the hostilities, he never flew into the territory of Ukraine, but only transported various cargoes for the Russian army through the territory of Belarus on a Mi-26 helicopter (the BBC in a war cannot confirm or refute the statement Mishov). He stayed there until April 2022, when he was sent back to the unit to continue processing his dismissal.
– This is a rather unusual situation when a military man does not want to fight. Anti-war military. How do you feel about the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
– I am negative. I am a military man, I have to protect my country from aggression. I must not participate, must not be an accomplice in crime. For some reason, they never explained to us why this war started. Why should we attack Ukrainians and kill them, destroy cities? Nobody explained this. And half of Ukrainians, for example, have relatives in Russia. It is not entirely clear why we need to kill them [Ukrainians]. I think that all this is done only to preserve the power of one person, a particular Putin. He decided in this way to simply strengthen his power. Thought it was a good idea.
The mood in the army, says Mishov, is now very different: a small percentage of his colleagues fully support the war, a small percentage strongly condemn it, and the majority are simply unhappy with their position, when they have to fight, receiving their former contract soldier salary (pilot officers with all the allowances receive 80-90 thousand rubles a month), while the state now promises new recruits 204 thousand rubles a month.
The process of dismissing the officer dragged on until September last year, but in the end the order did come. Mishov was in the Pskov region all this time and did not go to the combat zone anymore. A copy of an extract from the order of the commander of the Western Military District, Major General Sergei Ryumshin, on the early dismissal of Lieutenant Mishov dated September 6, 2022, is at the disposal of the BBC.
Before the dismissal, the officer was sent on vacation, he had to wait a month to be excluded from the lists of the unit. An extract from the order of the commander of military unit 44440 stating that Mishov “from October 7, 2022 to consider that he has handed over his affairs and position, stop additional payments, stop access to state secrets” is also at the disposal of the BBC.
A happy ending to this story was prevented by the fact that on September 21, Vladimir Putin announced mobilization in Russia. Already on October 15, the order to dismiss Mishov was canceled by the unit commander: “Reason: Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated September 21, 2022 No. 647.” The officer received a phone call with the news and that he was to return to the squadron. On November 8, Major General Ryumshin, Acting Commander of the Western Military District, finally canceled Mishov’s dismissal to the reserve by his order.
Mishov tried to challenge the cancellation of his dismissal in court, but on December 12, 2022, the Pskov Garrison Military Court sided with the command in this matter. A copy of the court’s decision is also available to the BBC.
“Tried all the ways”
“We realized that my case was lost. And that I would continue to serve in any way,” says the lieutenant. there was no choice left, and they began to put pressure on me to go to the NWO.” As a punishment for an officer who tried to quit, the unit commander threatened to send him to the front line as a simple infantryman.
“I was forced to sign in front of witnesses that I undertake to receive weapons and be on a business trip on such and such a date. It was at the end of January,” Mishov recalls. The command had a conversation about sending him to war on Friday, January 27, 2023, he was supposed to go to the front on the 31st. All weekend the officer thought about what options there are not to go to fight – so as not to go to jail. “I decided to open my veins,” he says. “Not hard, but enough to get to the hospital.”
The officer expected that after that they would change his category of fitness and still let him quit. It quickly became clear that this plan would not work either, that it would not work to avoid being sent to the front, but the prospect of a criminal case was becoming quite real.
After this act, Mishov, the commander of the helicopter squadron, wrote to the commander of the military unit a report stating that “the actions of Lieutenant Mishov D.A. show signs of a crime under part 1 of article 339 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation” – evasion of military service duties by simulating illness or in other ways. In normal times, you can get up to six months of arrest for this, but if this happens “during the period of mobilization or martial law, in wartime or in conditions of armed conflict or combat operations” – already a period of 5 to 10 years.
“That’s when I tried all the ways. When already in the hospital the doctor told me that no one quits like that. That everyone returns back to the unit. I decided to run away,” says Mishov.
Lying in the hospital, the lieutenant read an article about a resident of Pskov, who fled the war to Latvia in January of this year. Latvian lawyer and adviser to the Greens faction in the European Parliament, Alexei Dimitrov, commenting on the escape, pointed out that Article 9 (2) (e) of the “EU Council Directive on qualifications in obtaining international protection” considers an act of persecution, giving the right to asylum, accusation or punishment for refusing to perform military service during a military conflict.
“I thought that I’m just not refusing to serve, as it were, and I don’t refuse to fulfill my military duty,” the lieutenant says, “if I understood that my country was in danger. But I refuse to be an accomplice in a crime. If I “Still, they forced me to fight and put me on a combat helicopter, I would have had to kill in connection with my work. I would have taken several dozen lives, most likely, and I would not want this, because the Ukrainians are not my enemies.”
Deciding to escape, the officer, who continued to be in the hospital, began to look for options on how this could be done. “First, I had to get out of Russia. I heard about the Order of the Republic organization. Young officers told me that they were retired officers who were anti-Putin, and they could be contacted for help. I wrote to them in telegrams, they They listened to my story and said they would help. They promised to provide for everyone. They said, don’t worry, we will deal with everything ourselves. And so it happened. I would hardly have coped with this myself, because I was in the hospital for a month and a half. Weakened body, and it was physically difficult. And the people who helped, they built the route for me so that I would not stumble upon the outpost, the secrets of the border guards.”
The BBC Russian service knows the names of the people who helped Mishov cross the border, but for security reasons we do not name them.
When Mishov almost approached the “ribbon”, a signal rocket took off into the sky next to him, and then another one: “I thought that a chase had begun for me, quickly climbed over the fence with barbed wire and ran further through the forest. There was more and a third missile.
Already in the EU he was met and taken by car to Vilnius. “How to breathe free air, clean, fresh,” he describes the emotions after crossing the border. “Because before that, I felt that this threat was pressing on me. That I could just sit down for 10 years. I would have spent time in prison if I got into the hands of the border guards. And then I breathed freely and already somehow boldly went further with renewed vigor. “
He says that he discussed with his colleagues that he was not left with a choice: either go to jail or “blame”, but they advised him to stay in Russia and try to hide in it.
– What do you think, what will be the reaction to your decision among your colleagues? Will there be some kind of search, a criminal case? Will you be considered a traitor?
– Criminal case, most likely, will be. They have to turn him on. And among colleagues – it’s hard to say. I think half will understand. Even when I cut my veins, they treated it not as a suicide, but as just an attempt to leave, not to fight.
Corruption reports
Mishov says that among the military, many do not understand what is happening and why this war is needed: “They would not be against the conclusion of peace, so that all this ends quickly.” But the lieutenant also does not expect any meaningful sabotage from his former colleagues. He says that in the conditions of war, they rather come up with new schemes to earn money and deceive their superiors. Thus, in November last year, the Ministry of Defense promised to pay 300,000 for each destroyed aircraft, 200,000 for a helicopter, 100,000 for a tank, and 50,000 for light armored vehicles.
“Let’s say there is a damaged tank. And several helicopters fire at it several times, and the gunner confirms each time for a small amount that a new piece of equipment has been destroyed. And everyone is paid for one tank,” the lieutenant describes the army scheme. they try to make it look like they are participating in hostilities, even if they are not participating. Let’s say they are in Russia, but they are trying to make it so that according to the documents they were, let’s say, somewhere in Melitopol or somewhere else” .
– How do the troops feel about the daily reports from General Konashenkov, in which he destroys all Ukrainian equipment?
– Nobody believes in it. They know what’s really going on. It’s ordinary civilians [people] have no idea what’s out there. But the direct participants, of course, do not believe in this, because it is not true. I think that with statistics this happens precisely due to the fact that equipment is destroyed several times due to payments. And the subordinate commanders report to the superiors that everything is fine with us, we destroyed so many oporniks (strong points – BBC ), so much equipment, destroyed so many units there. And Konashenkov probably collects everything. Here is what I described – when one tank is destroyed several times!
Corruption decides everything, says Mishov, and recalls how, while studying at the Syzran Higher Military Aviation School, his boss collected money from teachers in order to close his debt to the bank of 2 million rubles: “He simply forced everyone to chip in by order.”
Neither ordinary military personnel nor officers believe in television propaganda, says Mishov: “They themselves do not believe that we are fighting for a just cause. That there are Nazis, fascists in Ukraine, or that an attack was being prepared against us. He said that like we are fighting here for our homeland, and if everyone, like you, refuses to fight, then we will be captured and hanged on a pole.” The commander “sharply took Mishov’s desire to quit and said that we would put you in jail” (the recording of this conversation is at the disposal of the BBC).
If Mishov had managed to quit last summer, he would have tried to evade mobilization and would not have returned to the army, but “they don’t want to let young officers go,” so the deadlines for reviewing his papers were constantly dragging out.
At the end of October, when the dismissal was canceled and Mishov had to return to the unit, Ukrainian saboteurs destroyed two Ka-52 helicopters at the Veretye airfield: “I just returned to the unit, it happened at night. In general, everyone was alerted. It turned out that two helicopters completely burned down, one Mi-28 was still subject to repair. The command first began to check all the servicemen, believing that someone helped the saboteurs, but the investigators failed to find anything. A few days later, explosives were found in the cockpit of another helicopter, which for some reason did not explode.
“We limited ourselves to a fence around the airfield. They pulled a thorn. We set up a few “secrets”, traps, again at our own expense, because no one allocates anything. They put two non-working infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers to intimidate at the checkpoint. ended,” he says and explains that the airfield remains a fairly easy target, because all the parking lots are open, and it’s impossible to block all the paths along which people from neighboring villages walk with fences: “The pilots don’t care. What’s the difference, expensive equipment or inexpensive. The chief, the commander of the unit, responsible people will suffer, but the pilots do not care. Fewer helicopters – we fly less. They blew up and blew up.”
– How would you assess the readiness of the Russian army for this war? Everyone was talking about the “second army in the world” …
– Not ready at all. Even if we take our preparations on the eve of February 24, no one in the troops knew anything for sure. Let’s say we have to set up heat traps that shoot back and take the rocket away. They never brought us. We were not provided at all. Half of the helicopters did not work, someone’s equipment did not work, there were no missiles. That’s how they flew. I think this is due to the fact that the command thought that everything was fine with us. And in fact, it’s all show. Unit commanders provided reports to the top, which do not correspond to reality. There are not enough rockets, rations, anything else, helicopters do not work.
– Do you think, when it all started, they really counted on some kind of blitzkrieg in three days?
– Absolutely right. Because the plans were to send us to Gostomel, and after us “Ilys” were supposed to go with a landing party. But since we did not fly due to losses, the Ilys did not follow us, and then the troops were completely withdrawn from Kyiv. I think the plan was just such that quickly take Kyiv.
“Ten years of Afghanistan repeated in a year”
When the Russian army left the Kyiv region, traces of many war crimes committed in Bucha, Borodianka, Irpen were revealed. Mishov says he did not witness war crimes himself, but discussed the news with colleagues who believe it was all committed by the Russian military there.
The pilot himself knows a colleague who, in his helicopter, was transporting household appliances stolen in those places: “An acquaintance carried, so to speak, trophies, which in fact are just household appliances from Ukraine, and there are ATVs, motorcycles. Among those who got these trophies “, they were discussed as a trophy. And among those who were not involved in this, precisely in this crime, they discussed it as stolen by looters.”
The military and all subsequent “regroupings” of the Russian army in the Kharkov region and the abandonment of Kherson were discussed among themselves: “We had this type of dispute: will they leave Kherson or not. Because everyone said: Russia is here forever. But everything went to the point that Kherson will be left. Most of them reacted neutrally. Some joke about it. Some even rejoice that they just left the city alone. Because who needs this piece of land from the DPR-LPR? The military definitely doesn’t need it.”
During the war, the regiment in which Mishov served lost almost 20% of helicopters. If earlier there were “40-50 pieces” in the regiment, then over the past year two were burned down by the efforts of saboteurs and another six or seven were shot down at the front: “The losses among the pilots are large. If we compare, say, with Afghanistan, I know that there are 333 lost a helicopter. And we have 10 years of Afghan repeated in a year. “
The officer believes that if the Russian army somehow manages to solve the problem of helicopters, then it will be much more difficult to cope with the shortage of qualified pilots. The training of such a pilot as an officer who fled to Vilnius takes five years and is expensive for the Russian budget: “They can recruit assault infantry, but find pilots … – he argues. – Most likely, they will, like Wagner, make They will look for “old men” who have already served, and lure them with money.”
The officer is not yet making plans for the future, but he no longer wants to serve in any army, but plans to “build a new life, learn to be someone else.” He understands that the process of its legalization in the European Union will not be easy, but he argues about this as follows: “As if there weren’t much choice. Either go to the war that I oppose and do what is contrary to my conscience, or sit down in prison, or here already trying to do something. I think it’s better to try here. Even if something goes wrong, it’s better than continuing to be in Russia under threat.”
Editor – Anastasia Lotareva