A picture shows Russian troops held in a Kremlin "punishment camp" for brave mobilised heroes who have refused to fight in his illegal war.
The enlistees were dumped in a cellar in the Donetsk region where they are “starved” and “threatened with mass execution by firing squad”.
Independent Russian media outlet The Insider highlighted the plight of 21 refuseniks illegally held in the Donetsk People’s Republic, which Putin has annexed.
Most have written statements stating they refused to fight because Putin’s war is against their conscience.
Their wives and mothers said they were labelled “traitors” and face agonising pressure to force them to revoke their statements.
The barbaric camp is feared to be one of many run by Putin’s military or forces allied to them, amid suspicions many more men than realised refused to take up arms against Ukraine.
A collective letter from the wives and mothers of some of the men held said: “While in Ukraine, our relatives were forced to storm enemy positions.
“In this connection, they wrote [statements] refusing to participate in combat actions, citing convictions of conscience [saying] they could not, and would not, kill people.
“Subsequently, officers of different ranks repeatedly came to see the soldiers who had signed the reports and interviewed them.
“However, after seeing they couldn’t convince them, the commanding officers started threatening them with execution.”
On November 4, one of the men managed to contact his relative to say they had not been fed for three days.
He continued: "The illegal detention of the servicemen in the basement continues to this date. They are not given personal hygiene items, nor have they been told the reasons for their forcible detention.
“On our part, we have appealed to the authorities, submitted statements [about] crimes, but there has been no appropriate reaction from the law enforcement agencies.”
Elena Kashina told The Insider how her husband, 33, and other draftees were given meagre training before being sent to the front.
The worried wife revealed: “He called me and said they were forced to attack enemy positions.
“He told me: ‘I realised for myself I would never be able to kill a man…
“‘I would close my eyes and ears, and I’ll be simply shot dead'.”
He wrote a formal legal statement on 12 October declaring he was a conscientious objector.
He told her: “Before I wrote it, a political officer of the 5th company in the DPR [pro-Putin Donetsk People’s Republic] told me: ’If you guys write anything, we’ll execute you by shooting by firing squad, throw you into a common grave and tell your relatives you went missing’.”
The wife said: “Morally they are completely broken people. They have driven away and thrown into a basement not too far from the front line.”
There are now a total of 21 men, she said.
Many of the men should not have been sent to the war, even under the Russian criteria for selecting draftees.
Her husband had done only basic military conscription before.
Others detained in the hell-hole 'punishment camp’ worked for a defence plant and should have been exempt.
One wife explained: “My husband worked at a mining and smelting complex, which is considered a defence enterprise, so [under the Russian rules], they shouldn’t have called him up for military service. But he was not so lucky.”
The commander overall responsible for the campaign is General Sergei ‘Armageddon’ Surovikin, appointed by Putin
