Russian soldiers’ calls bring the war home
In intercepted talks, troops discuss killing civilians, looting their homes — and fear.
That’s the mystery at the heart of 2,000 intercepted phone calls from Russian soldiers in Ukraine. These calls, obtained by the Associated Press, offer the soldiers’ perspective on Vladimir Putin’s year-old war.
The AP identified calls made in March 2022 by soldiers in a division accused of committing war crimes in Bucha, a town outside Kyiv.
The calls show how unprepared the soldiers — and their country — were for the war. Many joined the military because they needed money, and learned of their deployment at the last minute. They were told that they’d be welcomed as heroes for liberating Ukraine from Nazi oppressors and their Western backers, and that Kyiv would fall without bloodshed within a week.
The calls show that as soldiers realized they’d been misled, their fear grew. Violence that had been unthinkable became normal. Looting and drinking offered rare reprieves. Some said they were ordered to kill civilians or prisoners of war.
These are the stories of three of those men: Ivan, Leonid and Maxim. The AP isn’t using their full names to protect their families. There is no evidence of their individual actions beyond what they confess.
The AP spoke with the mothers of Ivan and Leonid, but couldn’t reach Maxim or his family. The conversations have been edited for length and clarity.
Leonid
Leonid became a soldier because he was in debt and didn’t want to depend on his parents.
“I just wasn’t prepared emotionally for my child to go to war at the age of 19,” his mother said. “None of us had experienced anything like this, that your child would live in a time when he has to go and fight.”
She said Russia needs to protect itself from its enemies. But, like many, she expected Russia to take parts of eastern Ukraine quickly. Instead, Leonid’s unit got stuck around Bucha.
“No one thought it would be so terrible,” she said. “My son just said one thing: ‘My conscience is clear. They opened fire first.’ ”
In their calls, there is a clear dissonance between the way she raised him and what he is saying and doing. Still, she defended him, saying he never even encountered civilians in Ukraine.
She said everything was calm, civil. Nothing bad happened. The war didn’t change her son.
She declined to listen to the intercepts, saying: “This is absurd. Just don’t try to make it look like my child killed innocent people.”
Leonid’s introduction to war came on Feb. 24, 2022, as his unit crossed into Ukraine from Belarus and decimated a detachment of Ukrainians at the border.
Leonid: “Our commander warned us we would be shot, 100%. He warned us that although we’d be bombed and shot at, our aim was to get through.”
Mother: “Did they shoot you?”
Leonid: “Of course. We defeated them. ... We shot from the tanks, machine guns and rifles. We had no losses. We destroyed their four tanks. There were dead bodies lying around and burning. So, we won.”
Mother: “Oh, what a nightmare!”
Leonid: “They were lying there, just 18 or 19 years old. Am I different from them? No, I’m not.”
He tells her they planned to seize Kyiv within a week, without firing a single bullet. Instead, his unit came under fire near Chernobyl. They had no maps, and Ukrainians had taken down all the road signs.
Russian soldiers soon ran short on basic supplies. When Leonid tells his mother they’re looting, at first she can’t believe it. But it’s become normal for him.
Leonid: “Look, Mom, I’m looking at tons of houses ... and they’re all empty. Everyone ran away.”
Mother: “So all the people left, right? You guys aren’t looting them, are you? You’re not going into other people’s houses?”
Leonid: “Of course we are, Mom. ... We take food, bed linen, pillows. Blankets, forks, spoons, pans. ... Whoever doesn’t have any — socks, clean underwear, T-shirts, sweaters.”
He tells her about the terror of going on patrol and not knowing what they’ll encounter. He describes using lethal force at the slightest provocation against just about anyone. At first, she seems not to believe that Russian soldiers could be killing civilians.
Leonid tells her that civilians were told to flee or shelter in basements, so anyone outside must not be a civilian. Russian soldiers had been told that they’d be greeted as liberators and that anyone who resisted was a fascist, an insurgent — not a real civilian.
Leonid: “Mom, there was a battle. And a guy would just pop up, you know? Maybe he would pull out a grenade launcher. ... Or we had a case, a young guy was stopped; they took his cellphone. He had all this information about us in his Telegram messages — where to bomb, how many we were, how many tanks we have. And that’s it. ... He was shot right there on the spot.”
Leonid tells his mother that he was nearly killed five times. Things are so disorganized, he says, that it’s not uncommon for Russians to fire on their own — it even happened to him. Others shoot themselves just to get medical leave, he says.
In another call, he tells his girlfriend he’s envious of buddies who got shot in the feet and could go home: “A bullet in your foot is like four months at home. ... It would be awesome.”
He tells his mother about self-inflicted injuries by soldiers desperate to escape the fighting.
Leonid: “Some people are so scared that they are ready to harm themselves just to leave.”
Mother: “Yeah, it is fear, what can you say here, it’s human fear. Everybody wants to live. I don’t argue with that, but please don’t do that. We all pray for you.”
He promises his girlfriend he’ll bring home a collection of bullets for the kids as “trophies from Ukraine.”
Leonid returned to Russia in May, badly wounded but alive.
Ivan
Ivan dreamed of being a paratrooper from the time he was a boy, growing up in a village at the edge of Siberia.
His dream came true. He entered an elite unit of paratroopers that crossed into Ukraine the very first day of Russia’s invasion.
He was training in Belarus when his unit got the message: “Tomorrow you are leaving for Ukraine. There is a genocide of the Russian population. And we have to stop it.”
When his mother learned he was in Ukraine, she said, she stopped speaking for days and took sedatives. Her hair went gray. Still, she was proud of him.
Ivan ended up in Bucha, where he called his mother, who was afraid the phone might be tapped.
Mother: “Son, be as careful as you can, OK? Don’t go charging around! Always keep a cool head.”
Ivan: “Oh, come on, I’m not charging around.”
Mother: “Yeah, right! And yesterday you told me how you’re gonna f— kill everyone out there.” (laughs)
Ivan: “We will kill if we have to. ... If we have to — we have to.”
Mother: “I understand you. I’m so proud of you. ... I love you so much. And I bless you for everything, everything! I wish you success in everything. And I’ll wait for you no matter what.”
Ivan finds that instead of being welcomed as liberators, most Ukrainians want him dead or gone. His mood darkens.
He calls his girlfriend, Olya.
Ivan: “You can go f— crazy here. It’s so f— up, the s— that’s happening. I really thought it would be easy here. ... We are really at the front line. As far out as you could be. Kyiv is [about 10 miles] from us. It is scary, Olya. It really is scary.”
Olya: “Hello?”
Ivan: “Do you hear me?”
The line drops.
As things get worse for Ivan in Ukraine, his mother’s patriotism deepens and her rage grows. The family has relatives in Kyiv but believes this is a righteous war against Nazi oppression in Ukraine — and the dark hand of the U.S. they see behind Kyiv’s tough resistance. She says she’ll go to Ukraine herself to fight.
Mother: “Do you have any predictions about the end ... ?”
Ivan: “We are here for the time being. We’ll probably stay until they clean up the whole of Ukraine. Maybe they’ll pull us out. Maybe not. We’re going for Kyiv. ... We’re not going anywhere until they clean up all of these pests.”
Mother: “Are those bastards getting cleaned up?”
Ivan tells her of Ukrainian resistance backed by U.S. help; she says he has her blessing to “kill them all.”
But death came for Ivan. In July, a local paper published a notice of his funeral with a photo of him in fatigues holding a large rifle. Ivan died heroically, the announcement said.
In January, Ivan’s mother at first denied that she’d ever talked with her son from the front. But she agreed to listen to some of the intercepted audio and confirmed that it was her speaking with Ivan.
“He wasn’t involved in murders, let alone in looting,” she told the AP before hanging up the phone.
Ivan was her only son.
Maxim
Maxim is drunk in some calls, slurring his words, because life at the front is more than he can take sober.
It’s not clear what military unit Maxim is in, but he called from the same phone Ivan used, on the same days.
He says they’re alone and exposed. Communication is so bad, they’re taking more fire from their own troops than from Ukrainians.
He has a toothache, and his feet are freezing. The hunt for local men, women and children who might be informing on them to Ukrainian forces is constant.
Maxim’s mood flips between boredom and horror — not just at what he has seen, but also what he has done.
The only reason he is able to speak with his family back in Russia is because he and other soldiers have been stealing phones from locals.
“We take everything from them,” he tells his wife. “Because they can also be f— spotters.”
Stuck just outside Kyiv, bored and not sure why they’re in Ukraine, Maxim and half a dozen others shoot up a shopping mall and make off with all the gold they could carry. Maxim, who has money troubles at home, gleefully calculates what his pile of gold might be worth. He says he offered a wad of money the size of his fist to Ukrainian women and children.
“I wanted to give it to normal families with kids, but the people out there were drunks,” he tells his wife.
On calls home, the high sweet voice of Maxim’s own young child bubbles in the background as he talks with his wife.
Maxim: “Do you know how much a gram of gold costs here?”
Wife: “No.”
Maxim: “Roughly? About two or three thousand rubles, right?”
Wife: “Well, yeah …”
Maxim: “Well, I have [over three pounds]. With labels even.”
Wife: “Holy f—, are we looters?!”
Maxim and his mother discuss the opposing narratives about the war on Russian and Ukrainian TV. They blame the U.S. and recite conspiracy theories pushed by Russian state media.
Maxim and his mother believe the Ukrainians are deluded by fake news and propaganda. The best way to end the war, his mother says, is to kill the presidents of Ukraine and the U.S.
Later, Maxim tells her that thousands of Russian troops died in the first weeks of war and that there was no time to do anything except haul away the bodies. That’s not what they’re saying on Russian TV, his mother says.
Maxim: “Here, it’s all American, all the weapons.”
Mother: “It’s the Americans driving this, of course! Look at their laboratories. They are developing biological weapons. Coronavirus literally started there. ... They even found all these papers with signatures from the U.S. all over Ukraine. Biden’s son is the mastermind behind all of this. ... When will it end? When they stop supplying weapons.”
In Maxim’s calls to his wife, war and peace collide. Even as she teaches their daughter the rules of society — scolding the child for throwing things, for example — Maxim talks about what he’s been stealing. His wife’s world is filled with school crafts and the sounds of children playing outside. In his, volleys of gunfire crack the air.
One night last March, Maxim was having trouble keeping it together on a call with his wife. He’d been drinking, as he did every night.
He tells her he’d killed civilians — so many he thinks he’s going crazy. He says he might not make it home alive; he’s just sitting there, drunk in the dark, waiting for the Ukrainian artillery strikes to start.
Wife: “Why? Why are you drinking?”
Maxim: “Everyone is like that here. It’s impossible without it here.”
Wife: “How the f— will you protect yourself if you are tipsy?”
Maxim: “Totally normal. On the contrary, it’s easier to shoot ... civilians. Let’s not talk about this. I’ll come back and tell you how it is here and why we drink!”
Wife: “Please, just be careful!”
Maxim: “Everything will be fine. ... I never saw such hell as here. I am f— shocked.”
In their last intercepted call, Maxim’s wife seems to have had a premonition.
Wife: “Is everything all right?”
Maxim: “Yeah. Why?”
Wife: “Be honest with me — is everything all right?”
Maxim: “Huh? Why do you ask?”
Wife: “It’s nothing, I just can’t sleep at night.”
Maxim is a little breathless. He and his unit are getting ready to go. His wife asks where they’re going.
“Forward,” he tells her. “I won’t be able to call for a while.”
