Crying Russian soldiers turn on Putin: Troops captured by Ukraine claim their leader is having their comrades thrown into mass graves as they urge their people to rise up against him
Russian troops who have been captured by Ukrainian forces have urged their people to rise up against President Vladmir Putin as they tell the world of fellow soldiers being thrown in mass graves.
A group of Russian soldiers spoke out against their government during a press conference with news agency Interfax-Ukraine, telling fellow citizens to not 'look at the zombies.' Alexei Zheleznyak, Mustafaev Mugsad, Igor Rudenko, Alexander Fomenko and others nearly wept as they told the press conference of their opposition to the Russian invasion, according to The Mirror.
Mr Zheleznyak, a soldier of the 34th separate motorized rifle brigade stationed in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic of Russia, told the conference he warned Putin he would never be able to send enough troops to Ukraine to take over.
The group of Russian soldiers spoke out against their government during a press conference with news agency Interfax-Ukraine
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He added that Putin 'is a liar and a deceiver of all our people.'
'Putin, without declaring war, is bombing residents, hospitals, cities of Ukraine,' he said, according to translations of the conference.
'People of Russia, don't look at the zombies. The Ukrainian people are a brave people. They will stop this (Russian) equipment even without weapons. They are united.
'No matter how much Putin sends his troops here, he will not capture this territory... Our commander-in-chief is a liar and a deceiver of all our people.
'He deceived not only us, but the whole of Russia. He simply made fascists out of us.'
Mr Mugsad, of the 34th separate motorized rifle brigade of the Russian Federation, also urged Russian citizens to ignore state propaganda in their home country.
'People will remember our aggression for centuries,' he said.
'People, military men of Russia, finally take off your rose-coloured glasses and see what is happening in Ukraine.'
They were seen weeping as they told the press conference of the goings on in the conflict
They claimed that 15,000 have already died in the conflict, which began nearly one month ago
He also apologised that 'the troops of the Russian Federation brought grief and destruction, in one day crossing out the peaceful life of the Ukrainian people.'
Mr Rudenko, signalman of the 126th separate coastal defense brigade of the Russian Federation, said the Russian troops had already lost and that the Ukrainian military would 'destroy' them.
He claimed that 15,000 have already died in the conflict, which began nearly one month ago.
Official estimates, however, put the figure of causalities much lower.
'If you (the Russian army) have the honour remaining, do not repeat my mistakes,' he said.
'Take the troops away, because Putin does not need us. He does not even take the corpses. They are thrown into mass graves. It's hard to see.'
Commander of the automobile department of the 126th separate coastal defence brigade , Mr Fomenko, appealed to his fellow citizens to protest the ongoing conflict.
'Do not be afraid of our government,' he said. 'They will not trample on the crowd. Yes, they will detain 10,00-20,000 people, but there are more of you.
In Russia itself, a huge pro-rally war was held in Moscow on Friday, where photographers captured the tens of thousands of Russians singing the national anthem
Vladimir Putin gave an address earlier this week to tens of thousands of Russians gathered at Moscow's world cup stadiumYou can go out and stop this chaos. Peaceful people suffer here, children.'
Russia is yet to respond to the press conference, which follows on from videos of captured soldiers expressing their regret over the invasion.
The conditions the soldiers were under when they appeared at the conference are not clear, and it is not certain whether they were forced or coerced to speak out against the Kremlin.
In Russia itself, a huge pro-rally war was held in Moscow on Friday, where photographers captured the tens of thousands of Russians singing the national anthem as Putin stood on stage.
In his speech, he told the crowd: 'Sevastopol [capital of Crimea] did the right thing when they put up a barrier to neo-Nazis and radicals, which is already happening on other territories.
'[The] people of Donbass also disagreed with this, and straight-away they organised military operations against [the Nazis]. They were surrounded and shelled by guns, the Ukrainians sent airstrikes against them.
'This is called genocide. It is to save people from this suffering and genocide that we launched our military operation.
Putin called the rally to mark the eighth anniversary of 'annexing' Crimea, speaking of 'de-Nazifying' the peninsula and of debunked claims of 'genocide' in the Donbass
People wave Russian flags during a concert marking eight years since Russia last attacked Ukraine, at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium
'There is no greater love than giving up one's soul for one's friends.
'The best confirmation of this is how our guys are fighting during this operation, shoulder to shoulder, helping each other.
'When it is necessary, they cover each-other as if it was their own brother from bullets. We haven't had such unity in a long time,' he said.
'It so happened that the start of the special operation coincided, quite by chance, with the birthday of one of our outstanding military leaders, the sainted Fyodor Ushakov, who throughout his brilliant military career never lost a battle.
'He once said: 'These thunderstorms will go to the glory of Russia'. So it was then. So it is today. And so it will always be.'
The event included patriotic songs, including a performance of 'Made in the U.S.S.R.,' with the opening lines 'Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus and Moldova, it's all my country.'
Moscow police said 200,000 people had attended the event - though the stadium's capacity is only 81,000.
It comes after police forces have been seen cracking down on anti-war protests and have arrested thousands of people, and are now checking mobile phones for anti-Russian messages and content.
Russia's invasion is now grinding into its third week with heavy losses for Moscow, prompting the US warns that Putin will increasingly resort to nuclear threats in order to keep the West out of the conflict because he will no longer be able to rely on the strength of his conventional forces - which will be weakened in the fighting.
Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress earlier this week: 'As this war and its consequences slowly weaken Russian conventional strength, Russia likely will increasingly rely on its nuclear deterrent to signal the West and project strength to its internal and external audiences.'
Today, authorities in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol say that the Russian military has bombed an art school where about 400 people had taken refuge.
A man helps Ukrainian soldiers searching for bodies in the debris at a military school hit by Russian rockets, in Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine
An evacuation of civilians from secure corridors pictured in Mariupol, Ukraine on March 18
Local authorities said Sunday that the school building was destroyed and people could remain under the rubble, but there was no immediate word on casualties.
Meanwhile, authorities in Ukraine's eastern city of Kharkiv say at least five civilians, including a nine-year-old boy, have been killed in the latest Russian shelling.
Earlier Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia's siege of the port city was 'a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come'.
His comments came after local authorities said Russian troops had forcefully deported several thousand people from the besieged city last week, after Russia had spoken of 'refugees' arriving from the strategic port.
Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents were deported onto the Russian territory,' the city council said in a statement on its Telegram channel late on Saturday.
'The occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhniy district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing.'
Zelensky said the siege of Mariupol would 'go down in history of responsibility for war crimes'.
'To do this to a peaceful city... is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come.'
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