Pavel Filatyev, 34, had spent more than a month fighting in Kherson and Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine while serving in the Russian army’s 56th Airborne Regiment. After being discharged due to a severe eye infection, the paratrooper released a brutally honest 141-page account of his wartime experiences on the Russian social networking site VKontake at considerable personal risk. Russian paratrooper Pavel Filatyev, 34, posted on social media an uncertain and harrowing account of his experiences fighting in Ukraine. “I know the consequences for spreading information about my military service, but to withhold it is to contribute to more casualties,” Filatiev wrote in his diary, which was verified by The Post. Filatiev opened his diary – written in plain prose sprinkled with striking Russian profanity and military jargon – by quipping that it was a shame journalists were not allowed to visit soldiers on the front lines. “Because of this fact that the entire nation has been deprived of the joy of admiring unshaven, unwashed, dirty, emaciated paratroopers who are angry either with the stubborn Ukrainians who refuse to de-Nazify themselves,” he wrote, “or with their alternate commanders who they are incapable of equipping them even in time of war.’ Filatiev claimed that half of his comrades would change into Ukrainian uniforms because they were made of higher quality fabric and were more comfortable than their Russian fatigues. Filatyev — a second-generation paratrooper — said he arrived at a training camp in Crimea less than two weeks before the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine to find his entire squadron of 40 men had to share a single tent equipped with only one camp kitchen. “Even in Chechnya, where we lived in tents or mud huts, our living conditions were better organized,” he said. “Here we had no place to wash … for those who arrived later than the rest, me and five other people, there was no sleeping bag, no camouflage, armor or helmets.” Filatiev wrote that when he was given the service rifle, it was rusty, had a broken belt and kept jamming after firing, forcing him to spend hours cleaning it with oil just to get it to work. Around February 20, the paratrooper recalled that we were ordered to withdraw and go on a forced march to an unknown location. “Some made jokes that now we will attack Ukraine and take Kyiv in three days, but even then I thought it was no time to laugh,” he wrote. “I said if that happened, we wouldn’t shoot anything in three days.” Filatiev wrote that he realized something serious was afoot three days later, when a commander arrived and announced that starting February 24, the paratroopers’ wages would rise to $69 a day. Soon, rumors began to swirl that the squadron was going to attack Kherson. Filatiev described the Russian army as being in complete disarray, lacking basic equipment and being led by incompetent officers. “Everything changed that day. I noticed how people began to change, some were nervous and tried not to talk to anyone, some looked openly scared, some, on the contrary, were unusually happy and optimistic,” he wrote, adding that he felt humbled and lively, attributing these feelings to a adrenaline rush. Filatiev said he was awakened at 4 a.m. the next morning by a ground-shaking roar, accompanied by a pungent smell of gunpowder. “I understood that something global was happening, but I didn’t know what exactly,” he recalls. He said one of his commanders tried to raise the morale of the troops, but Filatiev said he could see the officer was “freaking out” in the chaos. Filatyev’s squadron was finally sent to capture Kherson. On the way, they met wild-eyed comrades, who told them in graphic detail how they had spent a sleepless night collecting Russian corpses. When they finally reached Kherson, hungry, sleep-deprived, cold and dirty Russian soldiers proceeded to loot buildings for food and anything of value. “We ate everything like savages, whatever was available, cereal, oatmeal, jam, honey, coffee,” Filatiev said. “No one cared about anything, we were already on edge.” In early March, Filatyev’s unit was ordered to attack Mykolaiv and Odessa. As he wandered into the woods, he said, he asked a commander about their next move and was told the senior officer had no idea what to do. As the Russian offensive stalled amid furious Ukrainian resistance and increasing aid from the West, Filatiev described the next month of his life in the trenches as the “Day of the Pig”. “We dug in, our artillery was shelling us, our air force was almost nowhere to be seen,” he said. “We were just holding positions in the trenches on the front line, we couldn’t shower, eat or sleep properly.” The war in Ukraine is approaching the six-month mark.REUTERS He added: “Some grandmother poisoned our pies. Almost everyone got a fungus, someone’s teeth fell out, the skin was peeling.” As conditions worsened, the 34-year-old paratrooper claimed some desperate soldiers started shooting themselves to get a payment from the Russian government and go home. Filatyev’s own ticket home came in the form of an artillery round that sent a cloud of dirt into his face, causing a severe ‘pink eye’-like infection that almost cost him an eye – but ensured his survival. When he returned to Russia, the 34-year-old veteran said he decided to follow his conscience and do everything in his power to “stop this madness.” “We had no moral right to attack another country, especially our closest people,” Filatiev said. He ended his terrifying account with the words: “NO TO WAR!” Since publishing his memoir denouncing the war and harshly criticizing the military leadership – which is illegal under Russian law and punishable by prison terms – Filatyev has left Russia with the help of a civil rights group and moved to an undisclosed location.
