Putin's men are sick of fighting: Why 600 Russian soldiers in Luhansk region rebelled

Roughly 600 mobilized Russian soldiers in the Luhansk region refused to fight on the frontlines of Ukraine and were returned to Russia according to a report from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 

“There are cases of refusals to participate in hostilities by mobilized Russian soldiers,” the General Staff’s daily summary authors noted. 

“As of February 3, up to 600 people of this category were returned from the Luhansk region to the territory of the Russian Federation," the report read.

News of the refusal to fight comes on the heels of reports that Russia’s mobilized soldiers are getting more brazen in their defiance of the war in Ukraine. 

“Most of those mobilized Russians understand that their function in Ukraine is to become cannon fodder,” wrote Charter 97, a Belarusian pro-human rights news website.

“They organize riots and try to return home with all their might after a few days at the front,” the news organization added. 

Charter 97 has been following the rise of riots and discontent among Russia’s mobilized soldiers since they started arriving at the frontlines in early October 2022. 

“The riots of the mobilized have become a regular occurrence in the Russian army,” the organization wrote in a post on its website. 

“The Russians, unprepared for war,” the Charter 97 post continued,” are now being sent to the hottest spots of the front, and they write public appeals, desert, beat, and even kill their commanders.”

There is some evidence that Charter 97’s claims are true. In December, an intoxicated mobilized sergeant of the beat his commander to death on a military train according to a press release from the Magnitogorsk Garrison Military Court. 

In October, a group of 500 soldiers publicly blasted Putin and the Russian army in a now famous viral video for the inhumane conditions they faced after they were dropped off in Belgorod without orders or the proper supplies. 

“Nobody needs us,” a voice behind the camera said, according to a translation from The Moscow Times. “We’ve lived in animal conditions for a week.”

“We’ve spent an absurd amount of money just to feed ourselves, not to mention on ammunition,” the unknown soldier continued. 

Money seems to be one of the major sticking points of Russia’s mobilized soldiers according to reports from Charter 97, with several groups of men rebelling not because of the war but because of the lack of pay. 

In November, a group of 100 mobilized Russian soldiers from the country’s Chuvashia rebelled because of their overdue salaries according to Radio Free Europe.

"Our state refuses to pay us 195,000 rubles ($3,150 per month) that was promised by our President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin!” said one soldier in a video made to explain to Russians why the men were rebelling.  

"Why should we then go and fight for the state, leaving our families without any support?" the man continued. 

In September, Russia mobilized roughly 300,000 new troops as it sought to bolster its ranks before embarking on what many expect to be a bloody spring offensive. But it seems that the hundreds of thousands of troops raised may not have been enough.

Rumors regarding a second Russian mobilization have been circulating since before the New Year and it is possible that discontent among Russia’s mobilized servicemen will become even more volatile.