Last week, Russia announced that it was demobilizing dozens of the 91 Indians it had duped. While several of them have already been able to return home, the process of repatriating the men, some of whom spoke to the BBC, is still ongoing.I’m in a panic. I don’t know if I’ll come back safe or in a box. Please save me“, testified Urgen Tamang, a former Indian soldier, a few days before being demobilized.
“This expansion of the Russian military force could prepare the next phase of the war”
At Moscow airport, as he waits to catch a flight back to his home country, Sunil Karwa, who joined the front in February, confides: “I can’t believe I got out of there!“The electrician from Rajasthan then described to the BBC the shocking scenes of war he witnessed, including the attack on a man on the battlefield.”They sent him back to the front 15 days after his injury and he fainted on the field. He is now paralyzed” he says.
Mohammad Sufyan, one of his compatriots, also describes similar scenes, after witnessing the death of one of his friends.He was only 15 meters away from me, digging a trench near Krynky, in Kherson, when a missile fell. I put his lifeless body into the truck with my own hands. After seeing the lifeless body of my friend, I had no strength left for anything” he says.
So far, nine Indian fighters have reportedly died in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Last July, after a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Moscow, Vladimir Putin pledged to demobilize Indian fighters recruited by his army early. Since then, 45 of them have been released.
War in Ukraine: One million dead and wounded since the beginning of the conflict, the birth rate plummets among Russians and Ukrainians
