In keeping with the report, Russian nurses serving in Ukraine are allegedly being forced to grow to be so-called “field wives” – or sex slaves.
Independent news site Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty published an interview On Tuesday with a member of the service who said male officers force women into sexual slavery – and people who refuse face horrific mistreatment.
The lady, who calls her Margarita, said in an interview that she has spent the last two months in rehabilitation and is taking antidepressants on account of a severe injury she suffered in Ukraine.
Margarita said these harrowing experiences left her affected by constant nightmares and panic attacks.
“Even after I’m not alone and doing something, I still see all this horror before my eyes,” Margarita said, referring to the brutality and abuse allegedly committed by Vladimir Putin’s officers against their very own subordinates.
Margarita, a single mother living in town of Belgorod along with her adult children with special needs, retired from the military in 2017 after 11 years of service.
But last summer, she decided to volunteer as a nurse in Ukraine to supply for her family.
In keeping with the lady, as soon as she arrived in Nizhny Novgorod for training, the colonel in command of the tank platoon selected her and decided to make her his “field wife” – an off-the-cuff role reserved for female servants who often cook, clean and pleasure male officers.
Margarita said she rejected the colonel’s sexual advances, which continued even after the platoon was sent to fight in Ukraine.
Determined to tire her out, the colonel, in accordance with Margarita, ordered his subordinates to create not possible living and dealing conditions for her.
“I just slept outside for a month,” recalls Margarita.
“While others slept in tents and houses, I slept on the bottom, by the road, in a small forest.”
Margarita said the goal was to “break” her spirit into agreeing to have sex with the commander, but she insisted and was sent to the front lines in retaliation.
In keeping with Margarita, the medical platoon she was in consisted of seven women aged 23 to 38, lots of whom were married, each of whom was forced to serve with a number of officers.
“After we went there, after all, nobody knew what was happening. And once we understood, there was no turning back,” she said
On one occasion, Margarita claimed to have witnessed an officer shoot his “field wife”, a nurse named Svetlana, in a drunken or jealous rage.
“They felt like Ukrainians did it,” Margarita said of the shooting that left the victim permanently disabled.
“[The officer] shot himself within the hand as if protecting it, and returned from the hospital about three weeks.”
Margarita said that before the shooting, the officer hit Svetlana with the butt of his rifle in front of others.
Svetlana, who was married, called her husband back in Russian and told him about having sexual relations with a platoon officer because she feared that she might return from the war pregnant, in accordance with Margarita.
One other friend of hers, Alina, was “handed over” to the officer in September.
“They only put her in front of the very fact – you will be with it, he likes you,” Margarita said, adding that she later came upon that Alina was “handed around” between different officers and never returned to her platoon.
“The girl went with him,” she said. “And mostly the ladies got over it. They decided that on this war it was higher to live in paradise – fed and with cigarettes.’
The informant noted that not one of the women tried to flee back to Russia because they may not cross the border safely and risked being shot by their very own troops.
But female service members weren’t the one ones to suffer shocking abuses from their commanders.
In keeping with Margarita, conscript men who refused to fight on the front lines were routinely locked up naked in damp basements filled with rats.
She said that if this method failed, commanders also had a more “original” strategy to make their subordinates obey orders.
“They’d [conscripts] dig your personal graves. They dug a pit, after which they were forced to lie in it,” Margarita recounted.
“And the opposite guys, at gunpoint, sprinkled dirt on them. Even their heads would not stick out.
“Then the platoon leader or company commander would walk away and shoot those holes one by one.”
The nurse said that those that survived the shooting got here out of their graves “fools” because they didn’t care about anything anymore and in that state they might be sent to fight.
Margarita said she treated many recruits who had been beaten up by other soldiers.
In keeping with her, commanders would only allow individuals with life-threatening injuries to be hospitalized.
Otherwise, they received medical attention on the scene to avoid drawing attention to the abuse.
The lady said some Russian soldiers, ravenous and eager to escape the waterlogged trenches where that they had been for weeks, shot themselves within the legs.
“After they took off their combat boots, I used to be just terrified, I had never done anything like that before. Pure black with flesh, with dried blood; even the toes were now not distinguishable,” she recalled the horrific sight.
“The one thing left to do is amputation.”
Despite the painful experience, Margarita said she could be willing to re-enlist within the Russian military because she said she couldn’t make a living as a civilian.
“I might also wish to help the fellows at the very least get fed. I actually have a way of duty, of something unfinished,” she admitted.