- A former Russian paratrooper said he didn’t understand why his unit invaded Ukraine.
- Pavel Filatyev told the Guardian it took him weeks to realize Russia was not under attack.
- The Kremlin spread a propaganda narrative that it started the war in Ukraine to defend itself.
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A former Russian soldier who invaded Ukraine as part of an airborne force said it took him weeks to realize the war was unprovoked and his homeland unattacked.
Pavel Filatyev served with the Russian military’s 56th Airborne Regiment, part of the country’s elite airborne troops stationed in Crimea. He fought for weeks in southern Ukraine and recounted his experiences in a 141-page memoir titled “ZOV” in reference to Russia’s pro-war symbol. He published his experiences on social media in early August.
In a recent interview with the Guardian from Moscow, Filatyev, 33, described how his VDV unit invaded Ukraine in late February with no information on logistics or targets and little understanding of what sparked the war in the first place.
“It took me weeks to understand that there was no war on Russian territory at all and that we had just attacked Ukraine,” Filatyev told the Guardian.
In the run-up to the Russian invasion, the Kremlin’s propaganda operation was working overtime trying to spread a slew of baseless narratives that they could use to justify military action against Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s false narratives included blaming NATO expansion and characterizing it as a security threat, claiming without evidence that Ukraine is committing genocide against ethnic Russians, arguing that Ukraine is not a real country, and baseless ones Concerns about nuclear weapons.
For weeks, Western intelligence agencies and leaders warned that Russia would use these false narratives to justify invading Ukraine, which Putin’s forces later did.
In his newly published memoir, Filatyev described how his elite unit was tired, malnourished and ill-equipped when it stormed into Ukraine. He said he was deployed to war with a rusty rifle that jammed and came with a broken strap.
Filatyev said that when his unit arrived in Kherson – the first major Ukrainian city to fall to Russia – his comrades acted “like savages” and looted food, computers, valuables and clothing.
“We didn’t care about anything, we had already reached our limits. Most had spent a month in the fields without the slightest bit of comfort, a shower or normal food,” the ex-paratrooper said.
“Everything around us made us feel gross,” he wrote. “Like the wretched, we only tried to survive.” Insider has not been able to independently verify the details of what happened in Kherson from Filatyev’s memoirs, although the Guardian has been able to verify documents reportedly proving his service.
Filatyev told that he was wounded during an artillery battle and evacuated from the conflict after his eye became dangerously infected. He left Russia this week amid fears he could face some sort of punishment for his revelations.