Why Russia Purposely Leaves Its Dead On the Battlefield

If the family every Russian soldier killed in Ukraine were to get their promised death benefit, the total would amount to $68 billion - and that's just to date. So, it is, to put it politely, unlikely that the Kremlin has any intention of paying poor peasants in the hinterlands or the urban poor in big cities that kind of money. 

B Kean reports in Medium:

In 2023, Putin signed a decree stating that families of fallen soldiers would receive $68,000. Today, roughly 1 million Russian soldiers have been killed in Putin’s war against Ukraine. If Russia were to pay the families of each fallen soldier, the total would be $68 billion. There is no way in hell the Russian government plans to pay for each fallen soldier. Throughout Russia, loved ones of the fallen are finding they cannot get confirmation that their family members were killed. Officers tell their soldiers not to collect the dead. In some units, quotas limit how many fallen soldiers can be sent back to families. Regional governors are warned that if too many families request payments, the governors will pay. 

A friend from Russia recently wrote me to tell me about how her favorite “Uncle Sasha” went off to the Russian war of genocide against Ukraine, and after just a few weeks, he vanished. Sasha is 58 years old. He has five children, and in the end-of-the-earth village where his family lives, going to “defend the fatherland” was one of the only ways he could earn money.

Sasha went to the local recruiting office, returned home, packed a bag, and said that his skills as a mechanic would be used behind the lines. He told his wife the signing bonus would be sent to her bank account, along with his monthly earnings — and, in the event of his death, she would receive enough money to support the family for years. Sasha left. He called his family every evening for the first two weeks, and then the calls stopped. It has been three months since they last heard from him.

The only information they received from a man who knew Sasha was not promising. Sasha’s unit had been sent to the area just behind the front, and it was swarmed by drones, killing or wounding many of the men. Shortly after that, the man said, the area was apparently abandoned, and the units moved further back from the front. Russian bodies, he said, littered the area.

In 2023, Putin signed a decree into law stating that the families of fallen soldiers would receive $68,000. The estimate today is that roughly 1 million Russian soldiers have been killed in Putin’s war of genocide against Ukraine. If Russia were to pay the families of each fallen soldier, then the total would be $68 billion. As someone who fully understands how Russians regard each other, there is no way in hell that the Russian government plans to pay for each fallen soldier. Throughout the regions of Russia, loved ones of the fallen are finding that they cannot get confirmation that their family members were indeed killed on the front.

“We have no information that your husband was killed or wounded…That unit is mostly still fully intact, and they moved out to a different area…You know, many of these people like your Sasha want a new life, and join the war and then surrender and start new lives in Ukraine or Europe…Look for him on social media, he’s probably relaxing in the sun somewhere…ah, he has five kids, that convinces me even more that he is living a new life, he wanted to escape…”

This is the kind of unfeeling nonsense that Sasha’s wife, my friend’s aunt, has received in the months since his disappearance. Russians, especially the ones bearing the brunt of the war, impoverished, poorly-educated citizens from Russia’s unending countryside, now openly talk about how officers tell their soldiers not to bother collecting the dead. In some units, quotas limit how many fallen soldiers can be sent back to families. Regional governors are warned that if too many families request payments, the governors will have to pay. Given the levels of debilitating corruption in Russia, if a regional governor pays, it will either come out of his pocket or from the decreased earnings of the grifting local bureaucrats.

Of course there is no written proof that this is happening. There are no investigative reports by independent journalists that Russia is purposely leaving dead soldiers on the field where they fell. This is Russia, and anyone writing about, and even openly talking about this, could end up in prison or dead. This is what happens when the military shuts down, and authoritarian leaders crush the media — this is what has started in the United States, by the way. The Department of Defense tried to alter the number of killed in the war with Iran, but it was caught, and so the number was corrected.

Russian society is sick, diseased. There is no love for thy neighbor, let alone respect. If you ask many Russians about how the fallen from the far-off regions are being abandoned so that the families can’t claim payments, they won’t really express any disgust or sadness.

“Look, a lot of those guys were barely alive in those villages, drunk all the time, beating their wives, kind of like animals…they got paid more for signing up than they had earned in a lifetime…isn’t that enough? I mean, sure, the families should get something, but not $68,000. What are they going to do with so much?”

Many Russians would even be willing to accept the narrative that some of the fallen are living in Ukraine somewhere. Not because they have proof of this, but this is just the kind of poison that clouds too many Russians — and now MAGA — from ever being decent, kind, or human.

Uncle Sasha is dead, but the Russian government is hiding this fact because his wife and five kids, who live in the “ass of Russia (a Russian expression),” are entirely expendable. And this is why anyone who has ever lived in Russia for more than 5 years laughs their asses off when Russians describe themselves as having “generous, loving souls.”