Russian soldiers are reportedly dodging courts-martial by pretending to be killed in action

Wives of Russian soldiers are revealing that their husbands are facing courts-martial for abandoning their post and pretending to be dead, according to a new report.

Russia has started a draft of men in the country. Many of them have fled and those who couldn't were sent to fight with sparse and “barely usable” equipment and little food. It has resulted in soldiers looking for creative ways to get out.

In a report by the independent Russian outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe, covered by the Daily Beast, reporters spoke to the wives of three men sent to Ukraine last month into a "living nightmare."

First, training has been little more than "dig a trench in the forest." They were then sent to the Luhansk region of Ukraine. According to one spouse, her husband is being "commanded by two other mobilized men—neither of whom had combat experience." The families didn't hear from them for weeks only to have them call and beg for help.

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In one case, the man's group was shelled for 12 hours and watched as his commander was "torn to pieces." The other ordered the men to flee, but higher-ups demanded they turn back.

“After they refused to return, they were offered new equipment, bulletproof vests, helmets—or a court-martial,” the woman said. Now her husband and 26 other men are hiding in an abandoned house.

“Their bank cards are blocked, they are without a livelihood, without money, without food, without water,” she said. “My husband told me that he had not eaten for several days, and we do not know what to do about it.”

Essentially, the idea of hiding without food or water for days is preferable to serving in the Russian army.

A different wife said that her husband also got the "digging trenches" training for the war. In his case, 76 men were killed in one attack about two weeks before he was sent to Ukraine.

“For many hours they simply lay on the ground and pretended to be dead for one simple reason: they no longer had any weapons other than machine guns,” she said. “And there were mortars against them, drones flew over them, if they even moved a finger, then a drone would immediately fly in and destroy them.”

The Daily Beast reported that Moscow propagandists are still promoting that people should die for Putin instead of admitting defeat.

Read the full report at the Daily Beast.