MOSCOW, April 7. /TASS/. Relatives of the Ukrainian servicemen that were sent to Artyomovsk, a town known in Ukraine as Bakhmut, without training and weapons staged a rally in Kharkov, the Ukrainian news outlet Strana reported on Friday.
According to the report, people are outraged that their relatives were deceived and sent to Artyomovsk where they are stationed without weapons and officers. The servicemen are suffering large losses and receiving threats from the headquarters. The rally brought together the wives and mothers of the fighters of the 228th battalion of the 127th brigade of territorial defense.
"We want to stand up for the rights of our husbands, brothers, sons. We will be doing something. We will be pushing, going to the prosecutors and the headquarters," the news medium is quoting one of the rally’s participants as saying.
Strana has also published a video where a sister of a serviceman that was killed in Artyomovsk is talking about the situation of the troops.
"They were brought there by deceit. They were going to one destination but they came to another. They are not refusing to do their duty but with what? With knives against tanks? There are no battle-hardened officers and equipment. There are no officers that would go with them to the battle. All officers are sitting at the headquarters and just giving out orders. The guys are getting threats of imprisonment, all kinds of them. They are being morally exhausted. They guys are exhausted. Our guys are going to the slaughter. They are simply being annihilated," the woman told the news outlet.
She added that her brother died because he wasn’t evacuated after suffering a wound, although his fellow servicemen immediately sought help.
The news outlet reported that the fighters of the unit recorded an appeal a day before where they expressed no confidence in their commanders. They said their battalion was set up to be "discarded and annihilated" by criminal orders, was sent to Artyomovsk by deceit and without due training, weapons and communications. They also reported multiple cases of extortion and recording more personnel on the books than there really is, listing 100 people in a company while in fact, there are only 20-30 people.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the private military company Wagner, said overnight into April 3 that a flag of Russia had been raised over the city administration building in Artyomovsk. He said the city is under Russian control in legal terms. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said earlier that in the event that Kiev suffered a defeat in Artyomovsk, the West and his own people would put pressure on him to seek a compromise with Russia. He said ceding Artyomovsk would be more like a costly political defeat for Kiev than a tactical defeat.