Russian soldiers are convinced that getting injured is the only way they can go home to their families, Ukraine says

Russian soldiers at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, in a photo released by Russia’s military in April 2024. Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

• Russian soldiers want to get injured as they see it as the only way to go home, Ukraine said.
• It said Russia’s death toll has convinced soldiers they have no chance of surviving.
• “Therefore, the invaders dream of being injured,” Ukraine’s National Resistance Center said.

Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine now see getting injured as their only chance to leave the front lines and go home to see their families, according to Ukraine.

Ukraine’s National Resistance Center said that many Russian soldiers have lost hope that they will be given time away from the front, as Russia doesn’t have enough soldiers there.

“Therefore, the invaders dream of being injured,” it said.

“In this way, there is a chance to start work in a place of permanent dislocation, and then, if you are lucky, to escape. There are simply no other options to get a ‘vacation’ and see relatives,” it added.

The National Resistance Center, part of Ukraine’s military dedicated to teaching civilians how to fight back, said Russia’s high death toll had convinced soldiers that they had no hope of surviving and going home.

“The invaders are convinced that injury is an option not only to rest, but also to simply survive,” it said. “After all, they lost countless soldiers on the battlefield.”

Ukraine is also experiencing its own issues with allowing soldiers to leave the front lines.

Ukraine’s parliament this week scrapped demobilization plans that would have given soldiers who spent long periods on the front the opportunity to go home on rotation.

Ukraine, which has a much smaller population than Russia, has struggled with manpower shortages, and some soldiers said their units have only become smaller, as people leave with injuries or are killed, and few fresh recruits arrive.

Earlier this year, Oleksandr, a battalion commander, told the Washington Post that Ukrainian infantry were being kept in their posts for too long.

“They need to be replaced by someone,” he said.

Reports from earlier in the fighting have pointed to Russian soldiers deliberately injuring themselves.

A Russian paratrooper who fought in Ukraine said in August 2022 that some troops shot themselves in the leg to try to get away and also to get a $50,000 payout.

Audio published by Ukraine in 2022 supposedly showed a Russian soldier in Ukraine telling his mother in a phone call that his superior had shot himself to get out of fighting.

The wives of some Russian soldiers have also accused the country of keeping their men at the front lines indefinitely.

Many Russian soldiers have been sent to Ukraine with little training.

Captured soldiers and Western intelligence also point to Russia using tactics that don’t prioritize keeping soldiers alive, including using “meat wave” tactics to try to overwhelm Ukrainian forces.

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