Yaroslav (left) followed his son Bogdan (right) to the 80th Airborne Brigade. Photo: Colin Freeman for The Telegraph
After several months of fighting near Bakhmut, Yaroslav, an artilleryman of the 80th Separate Airborne Brigade of Ukraine, studied the Wagner mercenaries both from afar and close.
Sometimes he fired at them artillery from a distance of 10 miles. At others, he stood over their corpses after machine-gun battles in the trenches.
As private mercenaries, he finds their cause despicable, although sometimes looking at their corpses he feels a flash of pity as a fellow soldier.
«Some of them are professional soldiers, while others are simply used as cannon fodder» , he said on Monday, showing a gruesome phone video of the aftermath of the battle.
“One night a crowd came up to us and we shot them with heavy machine guns – when we saw the bodies the next day, we noticed how badly equipped they were, with little ammunition each.”
That feeling of pity again briefly awakened in him when he and his son Bogdan, who serves with him, pondered the consequences of Wagner's failed coup attempt in Russia on Saturday. subordination.
Now with their boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in exile in Belarus and Wagner seen as a threat to the Kremlin, the mercenaries had no treasurer and no reason.
Yaroslav, 52, spoke out as Russian media reported that Prigozhin would still face criminal charges for Saturday's uprising, during which Wagner's troops captured Rostov-on-Don and briefly moved on Moscow.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin held telephone conversations with the leaders of Iran, his staunch ally, and Qatar, seeking to restore his power after the most serious test that his leadership has ever faced. encountered. collides.
However, the coup attempt will leave the Russian president wondering who in the Kremlin he can still sincerely trust.
This dilemma will also play out on the battlefield, where divisions within Russian ranks could now give Ukraine an edge.
Wagner
Despite Saturday's crisis in the Kremlin's chain of command, U.S. officials said on Monday that there was no easing of hostilities by Russian forces over the weekend.
Nevertheless, Kiev said on Sunday evening that it had liberated the village of Rivnopol near Donetsk, one of nine it had recaptured since the start of the counteroffensive three weeks ago.
Saturday's drama was terrible entertainment for Yaroslav and Bogdan, who, like most Ukrainians, they were glued to their smartphones, watching the developments.
“You could say it was almost fun,” Yaroslav said.
“We watched with great interest, thinking: “Now is the time for the Russians to make our work much easier.” Then we were a little disappointed when the coup was cancelled.
Bogdan, 26, added: «We weren't on duty at the front then, but our comrades who were there said things were a bit calmer on the Russian side.»
Unlike Wagner's legions, neither father nor son see war as a professional calling.
But when Bogdan, a former taxi driver, volunteered for military service at the start of the war, his father, a builder, felt he had no choice but to follow suit.
“I didn’t want to let my son go alone, and then I thought it would be easier to serve with him than to leave him,” he said. “All we asked at the recruiting office was not to be separated.”
Since then, the couple has worked in an artillery battery, manning a 1973 Soviet howitzer in battles throughout Ukraine.
They say that by fighting shoulder to shoulder, they are well prepared for the possible front-line impact of disagreements in the Kremlin military family.
“It will be very difficult for ordinary Russian soldiers — even those who consider themselves patriots will not know who they are fighting for now,” Yaroslav said.
“Imagine also that your commander, like a Wagnerian soldier, tells you to go to Rostov and then to Moscow, and then suddenly gives up? Of course, you would lose faith.”
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In the wider Ukrainian high command, some have an unwitting respect for Prigozhin, if only for his candor about what Putin's «special military operation» has become. catastrophe.
In addition to his online ranting about the massive losses his troops suffered, the Wagner leader ridiculed Putin's claims that he was clearing Ukraine of Nazis, saying that the war had simply «legalized» the Kiev government in the eyes of the world.
He also described the Ukrainian army as one of the strongest in the world — a point that Bohdan is now looking forward to doing so with great force.
“Every day the Russians are slowly retreating, and we are slowly advancing,” he said. «And the real counteroffensive is yet to come.»
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