A Russian soldier said he was shot in the leg fighting in Ukraine then sent back out 10 days later, where he was shot again

Sinéad Baker
·3 min read
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A Russian soldier said he was shot in the leg fighting in Ukraine then sent back out 10 days later, where he was shot again

  • A Russian soldier said he was shot in the leg, sent back to the front after 10 days, and shot again.

  • Sergei told CNN that of his 600-strong unit, just 170 are left alive, and only two are uninjured.

  • He said he was concussed nine times from shelling, blinded by a grenade, and had to drink snow.

A Russian soldier said he was shot in the leg while fighting in Ukraine and was sent back out to fight ten days later, where he was shot again.

CNN interviewed the soldier, Sergei, twice: once when he was in a military hospital, and again last week.

Sergei told CNN that he was shot in the leg over the winter but was sent back out after only 10 days of treatment. He was then shot in the shoulder, and had to get more treatment, he said.

And when Russia had manpower shortages two months later, he was returned to the front lines, CNN reported.

Sergei's claims align with reports of injured Russian soldiers being sent back to the front lines without the approval of military doctors.

At the front, Sergei said he found men who had been recruited from prisons and were now missing limbs, who'd been given radio duties.

Sergei also said he had been concussed nine times over eight months from artillery shells that landed near him.

He was injured again when Ukrainian troops dropped a grenade into a foxhole where he and another Russian soldier took cover.

He said the grenade landed in the gap between him and the other soldier. "My friend was covered with shrapnel all over. Yet I was untouched somehow. But I lost my sight for five hours – just a white veil in front of my eyes. They carried me out by hand," he said.

After the incident, doctors gave him a job as a hospital orderly so he could stay there for the last month of his military contract, CNN reported.

Sergei said he is now working two jobs to feed his family and is still waiting for military compensation for his injuries.

He said that out of his unit of 600 formed last October, only 170 are still alive and that only two had escaped unharmed. "Everyone was injured, two, three, some four times," he said.

At the same time, he said commanders kept discipline by shooting soldiers who stepped out of line.

Soldiers also had to drink snow to survive in the cold winter months, and in better conditions "you have to walk three to four kilometers" to get drinking water, he said, no easy task on the front line.

"Sometimes we didn't eat for several days, we didn't drink for several days," Sergei said.

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