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By Isabel van Brugen
News Reporter
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Russian soldiers are resigning en masse, eight months into the war that President Vladimir Putin launched against Ukraine, according to the governor of Luhansk Oblast, Serhiy Haidai.
Haidai said on his Telegram channel that many Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine are writing letters of resignation and prematurely terminating their contracts.
"Half of the 200 military personnel serving in the 3rd Guards Special Operations Brigade have submitted letters of resignation or prematurely terminated their contracts after taking part in the war against Ukraine," he wrote.
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The governor noted, though, that "first-timers," or Russian soldiers recently conscripted as part of Putin's mobilization decree, "are ready to go into battle."
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"About five hundred mobilized servicemen from the 205th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade of the 49th Combined Arms Army went to the combat zone to replenish the enemy's [Russia's] losses in the temporarily occupied territories [of Ukraine]," he wrote.
Haidai said the newly mobilized recruits were wearing Soviet-style helmets and armed with AK-12 rifles, which he explained historically have a lot of issues.
It's not the first time Russian soldiers have refused to fight Putin's war in Ukraine.
Ukraine's Operational Command South reported in a Facebook post last month that soldiers with the 127th Regiment of the 1st Army Corps rioted and refused to further participate in the war over a lack of vital supplies such as water.
According to the command, the soldiers lacked support, while personnel in advanced positions didn't have water.
The servicemen were reportedly removed from their unit as punishment.
In July, Andrei Rinchino, legal head of the Free Buryatia Foundation, told Russian independent media outlet MediaZona that 17 Russian soldiers were detained in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region for refusing to fight.
Some were also reportedly threatened with being deployed to "combat assault squadrons" for asking to return home. Such squadrons are typically created to lead an attack and are expected to sustain heavy casualties in operations.
A Russian soldier was also sentenced for refusing to fight in the war in Ukraine in July, according to court records.
Ilya Kononov, a contract soldier from the city of Pskov in western Russia, was charged with "unauthorized abandonment of the unit" after he left his military unit without permission for more than 10 days.
The contract soldier was subsequently sentenced on July 21 to restriction in military service for one year, with a 10 percent deduction from his monetary allowance going to the state.
It comes as Putin's war flags amid a series of successful counteroffensives by Kyiv to retake its territory in the south and northeast of the country.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.
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