Scammed, robbed, traumatised – life after war for Russian soldiers

0:00Sergei Goryashko:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30Sergei Goryashko:us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist, discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott. So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts.

0:46Sofya Volyanova:Thank you. Bye.

0:51Sofya Volyanova:Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

1:00Sofya Volyanova:Estás escuchando The Fifth Floor. The Fifth Floor is in the news. To me, I'm the Fifth Floor. This is The Fifth Floor, at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world. I'm your host, Farnak Amidi.

1:26Sofya Volyanova:Hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers have fought in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion started in 2022. For those that survive, soldiers do sometimes return home, either for holidays or because they are wounded. Vladimir Putin promised that these men would receive a hero's welcome after returning from war. But what is life actually like? Today, I'm joined by two journalists from BBC Russian who have been looking into the reality of men returning to Russia from the war in Ukraine, Sergei Goryashko and Sofia Volianova. Welcome to the fifth floor, both of you.

2:08Sergei Goryashko:Great to hear.

2:09Sofya Volyanova:Sergei, I'm going to start with you. You wrote about Russian soldiers actually getting scammed after returning home. Can you tell me more about it? And how much do Russian soldiers actually get paid that makes them targets like this?

2:25Sergei Goryashko:So we've examined dozens of different cases when Russian soldiers returned from the front line just to have their annual leave or just permanently dismissed from the army. How they were scammed, how they were robbed. So it still happens a lot. It's quite often. In some cases, it's connected with their state of mind, with the obvious PTSD, which they bring with them home. In some cases, it's just because Russians who know how much the Russian soldiers are paid for fighting on the Ukrainian frontline, some of them decide that they can take advantage of that and they can get some money of it. Basically, Russian soldiers who can earn up to several million rubles while fighting in Ukraine in a year, We should just underline that not many survive a year on the front line.

3:13Sergei Goryashko:But those who come back usually bring with them large amounts of money worth thousands of pounds. That's their injury bonuses. That's their front line bonuses and stuff like that. Because Russian officials are conducting quite an aggressive campaign, both on the streets, in the media, on the social media, of trying to make more people to enlist in the army, Many Russians know that those who fight in this war are usually well paid as well.

3:43Sofya Volyanova:So all of that propaganda and promotion is playing into that. It kind of backfired, actually, yes.

3:50Sergei Goryashko:So once the billboards are promising you millions and millions of rubles on the streets, you realize that person in military fatigue who's walking next to you is probably carrying a large amount of money on himself. And that leads to some consequences in some cases.

4:05Sofya Volyanova:Do they get paid in cash? They don't actually get paid in cash.

4:10Sergei Goryashko:They usually get paid on their credit cards and their bank cards. But many of them withdraw money from those bank cards. And again, I mean, they're getting paid, but they don't receive any lessons on financial responsibilities. So they have never seen such amounts of money in their lives. And once they receive all this money on their bank accounts, they sometimes don't know what to do with all this. They just order lots of food and drink in the restaurant. They could just... Splash it around. Yeah, make grand gestures and stuff like this. And in some cases, they do withdraw money and take it in cash because some people don't believe in the banking system, some people prefer cash, and then those consequences come.

4:53Sofya Volyanova:Yeah. And Sergey, are scammers, like, hanging out, for instance, in airports and train stations looking for these soldiers as well?

5:01Sergei Goryashko:This is one of the most known and well-reported stories from Russia about this scam in Moscow, Sheremitevo Airport, which involved both police officers and taxi drivers. It emerged that security forces there at the airport were monitoring arrivals and monitoring Russian veterans returning from the front. And at least five police officers were involved in the scheme once they understood that there's a person who is just coming back from the front line is about to use a taxi. they sent their own taxi drivers to them. And those taxi drivers who initially offered reasonable fares for a drive then demanded some 15 times more agreed price and withdrew money in large amounts from those veterans.

5:47Sergei Goryashko:Those who refused to pay were threatened with violence and with police. And even some veterans were allegedly piled with alcohol in a taxi and that allowed scammers to just withdraw money from their bank account. So one veteran lost something like 1 ,600 ,000 rubles from his salary just because he was drunk in a cab. And that scheme was then investigated by the Russian investigators and that allowed to arrest both those police officers and some taxi drivers too. Which doesn't mean that such schemes do not exist in other Russian airports or other Russian railway stations.

6:22Sofya Volyanova:These are the ones that got reported and got attention.

6:25Sergei Goryashko:That's correct.

6:26Sofya Volyanova:Investigated. So you spoke to a man called Nikita for your piece. Tell us about him. What's the story? Why did he leave the army?

6:34Sergei Goryashko:So Nikita joined the army back in summer 2024. So it's already been two years of violent fighting on the front line. And still he decided to join. His idea was that he would be able to earn enough money for himself and for his family back in his town of Arroyo, where he lived and worked as a welder. and once upon a time he got drunk, got in a row with his wife and decided to enlist. As she told me, she thinks that her husband didn't think enough before doing that. So he went to the front line, he fought for about two months and then he suffered a wound. He was injured by a mortar. He was sent back to hospital for treatment and he received an injury bonus which he was about to spend on a flat.

7:19Sergei Goryashko:He wanted to buy a small one-bedroom apartment back in his town in Río, where he lived with his wife. But that never happened because Nikita was robbed by traffic police.

7:30Sofya Volyanova:But tell us more, give us some details about what happened to him.

7:33Sergei Goryashko:So again, his story started with a bottle of cognac, which he drank, which upset his wife a lot. And then Nikita, they got in a fight. He's torn out of his house barefoot and wearing just his military fatigues, got in a car and drunk in state. he decided to drive and he took all the cash he had all his injury bonuses which was withdrawn beforehand by him and his wife they were about to buy that apartment just the next day he didn't drive far just after 15 minutes he got he got pulled over by traffic police who saw that he was driving with his headlights off and the policeman who's who pulled him over saw a plastic A bag of cash just sitting in his car next to the driver's seat.

8:16Sergei Goryashko:And he told Nikita that he had to pay a bribe to be let go. Nikita figured that the police would take just some money, not all of it. But at the end of the day, they took all his two million, which were sitting in that car with him. So quite a large amount of money in Russia that allows you to buy... It would allow him to buy his small apartment in his native town. He filed his case with the police. The investigators found those traffic police cameras who took that money. But the thing is that they haven't found the money itself. They found those who robbed him, but the money was gone. And those guys did not plead guilty.

8:54Sergei Goryashko:And they, or another trick, they enlisted in the army to evade prosecution themselves.

9:00Sofya Volyanova:Because that's another thing.

9:01Sergei Goryashko:That's what Russian law allows you to do now. Russian law allows people who are facing prosecution, in some cases to join the army and avoid prison term. And they didn't need to play guilty. They didn't need to pay him back. They just enlisted and they are gone. He now says that one of those traffic police guys who robbed him is already back from the front line because he also got injured. But the thing is that once he's back, he's not facing criminal prosecution anymore. Nikita could file a civil lawsuit, which he's about to do, but it doesn't guarantee him that money would be returned to him.

9:36Sofya Volyanova:So how does Nikita feel about all of this? Because he was promised another kind of welcome, not this.

9:42Sergei Goryashko:Sad and betrayed, obviously.

9:43Sofya Volyanova:And what is he going to do now?

9:45Sergei Goryashko:He's actually not sure about his destiny, because from one hand, he's afraid of returning back to the front line because he didn't obviously like what he had seen. From the other, he says that only the army gives him a roof, and in the army he feels needed, and he has his friends there, those who served with him. His wife decided to split, so they are not living together anymore. So he's alone. And he could be sent back to the front line to fighting if the doctors decide that he's fit to do it. But he doesn't want that, but he doesn't see any other future for himself.

10:20Sofya Volyanova:Sophia, let's come to you now, because you've been looking at the mental health of these soldiers that return. we know when men are physically injured they might get sent home as we heard says in nikita's case but have you ever heard of men returning from the front line because of their mental health situation no i haven't heard about such a patient and even in nikita's story he has a as i understand severe injuries. So even in this situation, so still people with severe injuries are sent back to the front line. No, I haven't heard about situations when people were sent back because of bad mental health.

11:06Sofya Volyanova:Maybe when they pose danger for other war participants, maybe. And you wanted to look at this topic, the mental health of these men, from the viewpoint of the psychologists who are trying to treat them. That's an interesting angle to look at. But why did you choose to speak to these psychologists treating this PTSD and not the soldiers themselves? Thank you. It was always interesting to me how psychologists look at this problem, especially when there has been three and a half years since the full-scale invasion began. You think that Russian government should have come up with some idea, with some system, psychological system to help veterans.

11:53Sofya Volyanova:But as it turned out, it's not true. Do we have any idea about how many of these soldiers returning are suffering from PTSD? There is not one answer because, for example, Center of Psychiatrists, they estimate that roughly from 3 to 11 percent of war participants suffer from PTSD. And if they were severely injured, then this number rises up to 17 percent. Yeah. Some specialists think that in some way every war participant suffer from PTSD. And we also should remember that veterans may not suffer from PTSD specifically, but they can suffer from different anxiety disorders or depression or substance abuse.

12:42Sofya Volyanova:You spoke to a psychologist. She didn't want you to use her real name, so you called her Yana for your piece. Why did she want to help these soldiers? She was reluctant, maybe too anxious first to work with war veterans. And at the same time, she thought that she may have a chance to make them, as she said, less dangerous. Because she has this point of view that people who came from the war, who killed people, they are dangerous. And she could help to make them, to integrate them into society. Yana knows, as a lot of people know, that people with a war PTSD are more violent. And there are records about how people are suffering with PTSD.

13:34Sofya Volyanova:And we know it from earlier wars, for example. Vietnam War, the criminal records arose that there were more murderers and suicides and substance abuse. But in the end, she hasn't had a chance to work with them. So is it because that soldiers are reluctant to come and speak to psychologists and therapists? Yes. Why is that? There are numbers of reasons. There is a kind of conflict between people who were at war and people who have never been at war. And for people who were in the front line, it's difficult to speak with people who have never experienced such things. And eventually, they don't believe that psychologists can help them, understand them.

14:28Sofya Volyanova:And sometimes, of course, they are afraid to be judged. They have a really traumatic experience, and they don't want to remember it. They don't want to talk about it, come to it over and over in their heads. So now I have a question for both of you. President Putin said that returning soldiers will be treated as heroes and even as they will be the new elite of the country. But what these people have gone through is hardly any of that. Do you think people are aware how hard it is for soldiers who are returning from war? Are these stories that the society is aware of? Sergei.

15:09Sergei Goryashko:The stories are somehow reported even in those Russian media which are partly censored and I can't say that they are reported that wide and I can't say that those who suffered from scammers or those who were robbed are actually receiving any great attention from the law enforcement or from someone else. Yes, that's true. Putin keeps saying that those people who fought in this war will be the Russia's new elite, like those who fought in the Second World War, which is called a great patriotic war in Russia. It doesn't seem to be the case just yet. In three years, we can't say that this forming of this new elite has started.

15:53Sergei Goryashko:We see though, when Russian officials who are already in their chairs as governors or deputy governors or some members of the parliament who put on some military fatigues and go to the front line and they are seen as some sort of heroes and they with this way they show their patriotism as putin understands it and they think that they secure themselves their positions which is not always the case but i suppose that in a decade, that will be the same old Russian conversation. I fought for you while I didn't send you there. As it has happened in the Afghan war, in the Soviet times, as it has happened in Chechen wars, both in the first and the second.