Citing the soldiers’ families and human rights organizations, the independent Verstka news agency reports that at least 234 soldiers deployed in various regions of Ukraine are being held in facilities in the town of Bryanka. There, family members of some of the men say a special center has been set up to deal with those who choose to opt out of the war amid deteriorating morale and dwindling troop numbers. Vasili, the father of a 23-year-old soldier identified only as Alexander, reportedly told Verstka about the strange series of events that, according to his account, led to his son being held captive by his own army. He said Alexander called him on July 8 to announce that he and several other troops had submitted a formal request to the military leadership to leave the war. At the time, he said, Alexander told him he had been called to meet with a Russian general to “discuss” his decision. The next time Alexander called him, several days later, he said he was hiding in a basement in Brianka with other troops who had tried to quit, Vasily said. As of Wednesday, he was reportedly still in the basement. Fatima Gorshenina, the mother of another 22-year-old soldier, said her son and the other prisoners with him were trapped in a basement without electricity, food or water. And by her account, the jailing scheme apparently involves Russia’s powerful Federal Security Service and the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-linked private military force accused of war crimes across Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa. She told Verstka that her son, Artyom, had formally announced his desire to leave the war in April, along with at least 81 other soldiers from the same Russian military base in Abkhazia. After “nothing happened”, Artyom and a fellow soldier traveled from where they were based in Ukraine’s Kherson region to Crimea, where they turned to the local FSB for help. Finally, the FSB appeared willing to help, according to Gorshenina’s account, promising Artyom and several other soldiers from the same base that they would be flown back to Abkhazia so they could submit their requests to leave to the military command. The next thing they knew, however, their plane had landed in the Rostov region of Russia, where the soldiers were separated and airlifted to Brianka, Gorsenina said. They were eventually locked in basements, with Artyom reporting that they were being guarded by members of a private military group calling themselves “musicians” (a popular nickname for members of the Wagner group). “When the children went to Bryanka, we called the military base, the squadron commanders, the base commanders. I asked what they plan to do, why don’t they take the children from there,” Gorshenina was quoted as saying. “I was told there is a new center there for objections. They are having discussions with them,” he said. Despite being told that the troops would be sent back to their base to terminate their contracts if they could not be persuaded to continue their service after two weeks, “that did not happen,” Gorshenina said. Instead, as she tried to find ways to save her son, she said, someone unknown appeared to be impersonating him in messages with her. “I wrote him, as we call him at home, ‘Gnom, what’s your cat’s name?’ After that all messages stopped,” he said. As of Thursday, his whereabouts were unknown. At least 1,793 soldiers have openly refused to participate in the war so far, according to open source data. Amid reports of Russian commanders threatening troops with persecution if they chose to abandon the fight, Ukrainian intelligence services reported numerous cases in which Russian troops took desperate measures to try to escape, in some cases outright fleeing across borders and to others by intentionally injuring themselves. In one of the most absurd attempts to leave the war, according to the Security Service of Ukraine, a Russian soldier told his father that he “had decided” to “somehow break his leg on the stairs.” When that didn’t work, his father advised him on the best way to break his arm.
