La mia vita all’interno della macchina da guerra di Putin e il motivo per cui ho disertato

Igor Salikov knows his life is in danger. That’s the risk the Russian officer took when he disobeyed orders in Ukraine and defected to the West. But having witnessed the depravity of Vladimir Putin’s military, including the notorious Wagner mercenary group, he feels compelled to reveal its secrets.

On 20 February, 2022, news came through that Russia would be invading Ukraine in four days’ time. Salikov, who had spent decades in Moscow’s armed forces while rising to the rank of major, was shocked.

As a senior officer in a commando division of the GRU, one of Putin’s intelligence agencies, he was given a special assignment. His elite team would fly into Kyiv to capture the headquarters of the SBU, the Security Service of Ukraine.

“I had doubts about these orders,” Salikov says. “But we were told: ‘Don’t worry guys, friendly Ukrainians are waiting for us… We might have to have to fight with some Nazis, but it’s not a big deal.’”

Putin thought his “special military operation” would be completed within days. But as Salikov saw with his own eyes, the invasion was a disaster from the start.

Over the following month, he witnessed Russian war crimes against women and children. He says he saw his comrades – lied to by the Kremlin about the need for war, let down by generals through negligent planning – being sent into slaughter against brave Ukrainians defending their country.

Salikov did his best to save his troops from the Ukrainian front line, despite the personal risks. A year later, he found a way to escape Russia altogether. He defected to the West in 2023 and gave evidence to the International Criminal Court (ICC) about atrocities carried out in Putin’s name.

These days, he lives in Western Europe with his wife and two children. He prefers not to say where, knowing he may be an assassination target.

Now, the former officer reveals to The i Paper the inner workings of Russia’s war machine. He gives insights into how the military felt betrayed by Putin and sometimes fought amongst itself, what it was like serving in Wagner – including his meetings with its criminal owner Yevgeny Prigozhin and Hitler-worshipping commander Dmitry Utkin – plus how and why he ultimately escaped.

“I hope Ukraine will win,” he says. “I hope justice is going to prevail.”

At first I read that defecated 🙈

Ah, yes, another one who has a problem with _poor planning_ and _unexpected resistance_ who fought for a year until he got a comfy retirement in the west.

This reminds me of something that happened when I was a child in the 1980’s (yes I’m that old). In the middle of the night a Soviet ship had passed my village on the west-coast of Norway. One of the sailors jumped ship and swam to the shore. The ship had been quite far from land so he could have died. He then knocked on the door of one of my school mates and asked for dry clothes, and then he waited there until the police arrived. He was later granted asylum.