Serbian sniper Dejan Beric, who recruits Serbian volunteers for Russia, claims that the 119th Airborne Regiment of the Russian army, in which foreign mercenaries serve, treats them “like cattle”, reports BBC Russia.

Dressed in a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Team Putin,” Berich says in an 11-minute video he posted on VKontakte, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook, that Serbs recruited to fight in Ukraine are part of — a unit that is part of 119th “Ryazan” Airborne Regiment assigned to the 106th “Tula” Division of the Russian Army.

According to him, the Serbs are treated “like cattle”, the Russian military command denies them the necessary medical care and leaves them without the necessary weapons and equipment.

His comments suggest that Serbian volunteers are being discriminated against by the Russian military when it comes to the distribution of equipment, given that even a Ukrainian commander recently said that the Russian armed forces have reopened the gap they had with the Ukrainians on this. department in the winter, after President Vladimir Putin ordered a “partial mobilization.”

In fact, Berych claims that the commanders of the 119th regiment called the Serbs “gypsies” and allegedly said that they did not understand why they had come to fight in Ukraine. He also reported that Serbian volunteers were sent to storm Ukrainian positions before the New Year, although they were provided with only 2-3 rows of machine gun cartridges.

When they asked for more ammunition, the Serbs were told they had to capture it in battle, Beric said. He stated that in these conditions the Serbian mercenaries refused to fight and asked to be transferred to one of the Chechen “Akhmat” regiments mobilized by Ramzan Kadyrov.

The sniper says that the Russian army abused the Serbian volunteers

Berich says that in response to this request, the commanders of the 119th regiment rounded up foreigners who refused to fight and drove them out of the trenches, leaving them without food and water for several days. Berych notes that after that, the Russian commanders tried to force the volunteers, under the threat of beating, imprisonment and even shooting, to storm Ukrainian positions.

According to him, then the Russian military police tried to force the Serbs to sign confessions of espionage.

“I fear for the lives of these people. The command of the 119th regiment is an organized criminal group,” the Serbian sniper emphasized, according to a translation of his message by the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

Berich added that he hopes that President Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu will be informed about the situation, but at the same time he fears that he may be prosecuted for the article about “discrediting” the Russian military.

Dmytro, the founder of the well-known website War Translated, separately translated part of his message and distributed it on the X social network.

Who is Deyan Berych?

Berich, now 49, is believed to have been recruited by Moscow’s special forces sometime in 2013 or 2014, taking part in the sabotage operations that paved the way for Russian troops to enter Crimea almost unopposed nine years ago.

After the start of the war in Donbas in the same year, he joined the pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk region, and is still a member of the forces of the so-called “republic” in eastern Ukraine. Berych is a laureate of several awards of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”, as well as the medal “For the return of Crimea”, which is awarded by the Ministry of Defense of Russia.

After the lull in Donbas, he became famous in the Russian news space, Moscow television presented him to society as a war hero and often described him as the “most decorated fighter” of the war in Donbas.

In March 2021, he announced that he would return to the front line, citing rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine. In December 2022, footage of his meeting and conversation with Serbian volunteers for the war in Ukraine appeared.

Just one month later, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić called on Russia to stop trying to recruit Serbian citizens for the war in Ukraine, citing that Belgrade’s laws prohibit mercenaries.

Serbia’s national intelligence has put Beric on a list of mercenaries for war and considers him a threat to the country’s national security. If he returns to Serbia or is extradited to that country, he faces years in prison.

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