ロシア軍元兵士、内部事情を暴露　フランスで亡命申請へ

【パリＡＦＰ＝時事】「われわれには他国を攻撃する道徳的権利などなかった。それが最も近い国ならなおさらだ」。ロシア軍の精鋭部隊、空挺（くうてい）部隊に所属していた兵士が、ウクライナに侵攻したロシア軍の内部事情を暴露し、身に危険を感じて政治亡命するため、８月末にフランスに入国した。（写真はフランスに到着したパベル・フィラティエフさん）
　内部告発したのはパベル・フィラティエフさん（３４）。ウラジーミル・プーチン大統領が２月にウクライナ侵攻を命じた際、フィラティエフさんが所属していた空挺部隊は同国南部に派遣された。目の感染症で前線を離れるまで、南部ヘルソンやミコライウの周辺で２か月間従軍した。
　フィラティエフさんは８月、ロシアのＳＮＳ「フコンタクチェ」に、ウクライナ侵攻の際に軍用車に記されたＺなどの文字にちなみ「ＺＯＶ」と題した１４１ページの暴露文書を掲載した。

■「混沌と腐敗」
　この中で、ロシア軍は侵攻開始前も訓練や装備が不十分で、機能不全に陥っていたと指摘していたフィラティエフさん。ロシア軍の内情についてＡＦＰに対し、「年を追うごとに混沌（こんとん）と腐敗は深まっていった。腐敗や無秩序、投げやりな姿勢は、許容できない段階に達した」と語った。
　「（入隊した）最初の数か月間はショックで、これは何かの間違いだと自分に言い聞かせていた。その年の終わりには、このような軍隊の下で軍務に服したくはないという気持ちになっていた」と振り返る。
　フィラティエフさんは「もし平時に軍隊が混乱状態にあり、腐敗して無気力なら、戦時下や戦闘時には、こうした状態が一層悪化し、プロ意識の欠如はより顕著になる」と話した。
　「旧ソ連から継承した軍隊を破壊」するのに大きな役割を果たしたのは、政権で権力を握っていた人々だと批判する。

■恐怖で支配された軍隊
　軍病院に入院した後、健康上の理由で除隊しようとしたが、上官から、前線に復帰しなければ調査対象になると脅された。８月に退院すると、ネット上に内情を暴露し、所在を察知されないようロシア国内を転々とした後出国、チュニジア経由でフランスに入国した。
　フィラティエフさんは、ロシアや世界の人たちにどのようにしてこの戦争が起きたのか、なぜ今も人々が戦っているのか知ってもらうために告発に踏み切ったという。
　ロシア兵が戦っているのは「戦いたいからではなく、除隊が極めて難しい状況に置かれているためだ」と説明する。そして「軍隊やロシアの社会全体が恐怖によって支配されている」と強調した。
　フィラティエフさんは、戦争を支持しているのは兵士の１０％にすぎず、残りは恐怖で声を上げられないと考えている。
　フランスで亡命が認められれば、「戦争が終結するよう活動」したいと話すフィラティエフさん。「ウクライナに送られたり、この戦争に関わったりするロシアの若者はできるだけ少ない方がいい。彼らにはウクライナで何が起きているのか知ってほしい」【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/09/08-13:27）

Suddenly notorious for a scathing first-person account of the war in Ukraine published online, Russian paratrooper Pavel Filatiev arrived in France seeking political asylum Sunday after quitting his country for fear of reprisals.
When I heard the higher-ups were calling for me to be sentenced to 15 years in prison for fake news, I realised that I wouldn't get anywhere here and my lawyers couldn't do anything for me in Russia, Filatiev tells AFP in the asylum seekers' waiting area at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.
Tuesday afternoon came the news that Pavel Filatiev was freed late afternoon after receiving official authorisation to enter France, where he will have eight days to make an asylum claim, his lawyer Kamalia Mehtiyeva told AFP.
We are delighted at this decision and are going to file the political asylum request in the days ahead, Mehtiyeva added.
After a time out from the army, the 34-year-old last year rejoined Russia's 56th airborne regiment -- his father's old unit -- based in Crimea.
The paratroopers were sent into southern Ukraine when President Vladimir Putin began his special military operation against Kyiv on February 24.
Filatiev himself spent two months around the key cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv before being withdrawn from the front with an eye infection.
We didn't have the moral right to attack another country, especially when it's the nation that's closest to us, he writes in a 141-page broadside called ZOV that he posted on the VKontakte social network in August.
The title, the Russian word for call, is made up of the identification letters painted on military vehicles during the attack.
In his account, Filatiev rails at both the state of the military and Moscow's assault on Ukraine, which he believes is broadly opposed by rank-and-file soldiers too afraid to speak out.
- 'Chaos and corruption' -
Filatiev depicts a barely functioning force that lacked training and equipment even before the invasion started.
The armed forces are in the same state Russia has fallen into in the last few years, he tells AFP.
Year by year the chaos and corruption grow. Corruption, disorder and a couldn't-care-less attitude have reached unacceptable levels, Filatiev adds.
For the first few months I was in shock, I told myself that it couldn't be true. By the end of the year, I realised that I didn't want to serve in an army like this.
But he did not resign before the attack on Ukraine began, and found himself advancing with his unit into the south of the neighbouring country.
If the army was already a mess in peacetime, corrupt and apathetic, it's clear that in wartime, in combat, that this will come even more to the fore and the lack of professionalism is even more obvious, Filatiev says.
Those in power in Moscow have played a major role in destroying the army we inherited from the Soviet Union, he adds.
Filatiev insists that his unit did not participate in the abuses against civilians and prisoners that have caused worldwide outcry and allegations of war crimes by the Russian invaders during his two months at the front.
- 'Terrorised' troops -
After being evacuated to a military hospital in the Crimean city of Sebastopol, he tried to resign for health reasons -- only to be threatened by his superiors with an investigation if he refused to return to the fighting.
He left Crimea in early August and published his account of the war online.
Filatiev spent time skipping from one town to another to avoid detection before leaving the country, arriving this week in France via Tunisia.
Why am I telling all this in detail? I want people in Russia and in the world to know how this war came about, why people are still waging it, he says.
On the Russian side, It's not because they want to fight, it's because they are in conditions that make it very difficult for them to quit, Filatiev believes.
The army, all of Russian society, is terrorised, he adds.
By Filatiev's reckoning, just 10 percent of soldiers support the war, with the remainder fearing to speak out.
Those who are against are afraid to say it, afraid to leave. They're afraid of the consequences, he says.
If granted asylum in France, Filatiev says he wants to work towards this war coming to an end.
I want the fewest possible young Russian men to go there and get involved in this, for them to know what's happening there, he says.