Serbian volunteers on the Ukrainian front: Kosovo is defending itself here. So God help us and Russian artillery”

“So you come to Moscow. I or someone from the service will be waiting for you in Moscow. They will take you to the training ground and you will sign the contract at the training ground. You serve in the armed forces of the Russian Federation under the same conditions as all other Russian soldiers. So you are a contract soldier. There are no volunteers. You get a salary, you go to work,” Dejan Beric says at the beginning of the video.

“This is what a Russian army tent looks like,” says Serbian Dejann Beric in the background as he enters one of the tents at the Russian Federation Army training camp.

That tent housed several Serbs who had come to fight on the Ukrainian front. But before they go to the battlefield, they have to be trained. At least six young men from Serbia can be heard on the video being trained by Russian special forces.

“Greetings for Borca”, says one of them in a video posted on Dejan Beric’s YouTube channel two days ago.

Dejann Beric is a “experienced” Serbian warrior. Since 2014, he has been fighting in Ukraine, in paramilitary formations controlled by the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPRK) para-state. Or, to be more precise, he fought on the side of informal Russian military formations. After Russia officially launched its aggression against Ukraine at the beginning of this year, Beric was in charge of recruiting soldiers from Serbia.

“So you come to Moscow. I or someone from work will be waiting for you in Moscow. I will take you to the training ground and you will sign the contract at the training ground. You serve in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation under the same conditions as all other Russian soldiers. So you are a contract soldier. There are no. volunteers. You get a salary, you get seniority”, Dejan Beric says at the beginning of the video.

Appalled by the attitude of the Serbian authorities towards him and the accusations that he is carrying “cannon fodder” from Serbia to the Ukrainian front, Beric decided to make a short video showing the preparations of Serbian volunteers for military operations.

” Don’t be fooled by the fact that the conditions at the training ground are good. But when you go to war, everything is much different and much harder”, says Beric as he approaches a group of Serbian citizens crowding around a fire.

Two Serbs agree to have their faces photographed. They show pieces of dried meat and say they are better off in the Russian army than in Serbia.

“I salute the fighters for Russia. God help us,” says one soldier, and Beric throws in, “God and Russian artillery”.

A young man, Borchanac, appears in the tent.

“It’s better than Belgrade. Better than at home, brother,” says Borčanac.

One of the soldiers says the situation is “top”. He shows the boots under his bed and those on his feet.

“If I had these when I was in Kiev, it would have been over,” says Beric.

Another young man can be heard in the background. He invites other boys from Serbia to join him.

“Kosovo is defending here. And not down,” he finishes the call.

The Serbian volunteers are, as we said, gathered and coordinated by Dejan Beric Deki, 48, from Vojvodina, who has been decorated seven times for his services in Ukraine. He is one of the most famous snipers. He was wounded several times.

“First, you can lose your life and become permanently disabled. This is not a game for Play Station, people die here and think twice about coming. If you are sick and you don’t think you can survive the training, the Russians will send you back and then you will have problems with the law in your own countries where you get a prison sentence for being on the Russian side. You pay your own travel expenses and only after three months of signing a professional contract with the Russian army will you be reimbursed. Once you sign the contract, you have all the rights of any professional Russian soldier, and your monthly salary is 110 thousand roubles, or between EUR 1 500 and EUR 1 600, and up to EUR 2 000 if you are deployed on the heaviest battlefields. After six months of service in the Russian army as a professional soldier, you are entitled to a Russian passport and Russian citizenship. As soon as you arrive, you must leave a telephone message with a person close to you in the country you are coming from to inform them of your possible death, for which the Russian state pays the person you leave the message seven million roubles (but just over 115 000 euros) and itself takes care of the cost of transporting the body of the deceased to the destination where you will be buried. In case you are injured, you also receive compensation depending on the severity of your injuries (broken leg, etc.), which goes up to 45,000 euros for shrapnel injuries, which are medium severity injuries. I will be the commander in this battalion and I will not tolerate any alcohol or indiscipline, and you will be trained in Donetsk by four top military instructors who are already there,” Beric explained via his Telegram channel in the autumn.

Avdo Avdić, Istraga