Bad logistics, hardly any motivation – what about the Russian army

Mom, we’ve been cheated! her son yelled on the phone. He, Pavel Abramov, 23, a Russian soldier, called her from the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. It was late on the evening of February 23, shortly before Russian troops invaded the neighboring country.

That’s how Abramov’s mother described it, the Russian “Novaya Gazeta”. The newspaper – one of the few independent media outlets in Russia – claims to have verified the story with documents, but this cannot be verified.

The editors have since removed the text from their website after the Russian parliament passed a law providing for up to 15 years in prison for “false reports” about the Russian army. The article is still available in internet archives.