A deserted aviator from the Russian army reports that the Kremlin troops are very dissatisfied. One reason is said to be the particularly unfair pay for newcomers.
When internals from Russia’s military make the headlines, foreign secret services are usually responsible. Insiders rarely speak up – under Putin’s regime it is too dangerous to talk about the often desolate situation of the soldiers. Dimitri Mischow, 26, recently a lieutenant in a Russian air brigade and now an asylum seeker in Latvia, does it anyway.
He is one of a handful of deserted soldiers who are using their newfound freedom in the EU to publicly criticize the war against Ukraine and the situation in the military.
In an interview with the British BBC, Mischow reports on the mixed mood within the Russian troops: Some soldiers supported the war, but very few believed that the aim was to protect Russia from an actual threat.
Kremlin propaganda fizzles out in the army
Since the attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has justified the war, which is still not allowed to be called that in Russia, as a preventive liberation strike against a government in the neighboring country that is supposedly infiltrated by neo-Nazis. An unfounded claim that Mischow doesn’t believe either. “I would serve my country if it were a real threat. But I refused to take part in a crime.”
According to Mishov, there are different attitudes towards Ukraine in the Russian army, but the propaganda from the government and military leadership simply fizzles out. Nobody believes the official reports about front-line successes and allegedly low numbers of casualties in their own ranks.
While Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke of around 6,000 dead in September 2023, the US Pentagon already assumed up to 80,000 dead. A leaked US intelligence document from April 2023 estimates the number of Russian soldiers killed at 223,000.
More salary for inexperienced newcomers
According to Mischow, the losses are particularly high in aviation squadrons, which is confirmed by investigative research by the BBC. Accordingly, Russia’s military has lost hundreds of special forces from its air force – a major problem given the complex and expensive training of new recruits. “They can now replace the helicopters, but there aren’t enough pilots,” says Mischow, who himself was a navigator for combat helicopters.
He estimates that Russia has already lost more than 330 helicopters in the first year of its war against Ukraine, the same number as the Soviet Union lost in its 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan.
According to Mischow, unfair salaries are the main cause of great resentment among the soldiers. According to this, experienced Air Force officers continue to receive the same salary as before the beginning of the war: a maximum of 90,000 rubles per month, the equivalent of around 1,016 euros.
At the same time, new recruits in official recruitment campaigns would be offered a salary of around 204,000 rubles per month, the equivalent of around 2,300 euros. In addition, according to the “Moscow Times”, newcomers should receive bonuses for destroying or taking over opponent’s weapons and equipment.
Foreign secret services and the media keep reporting that the Russian military leadership is struggling with a growing shortage of personnel. Anonymous Russian sources confirmed to the business magazine “Bloomberg” in April that the military leadership wanted to recruit around 400,000 new soldiers this year.
No release despite attempted suicide
According to Dimitri Mishov, he was not on duty in Ukraine before he fled. In January 2022 he applied for his discharge from the military, but was sent to Belarus after the start of the war to transport military equipment there by helicopter. The nationwide partial mobilization followed in September, which made his release into civilian life impossible, according to Mischow.
