- 1 week ago
Russian soldiers entered Ukraine believing they would be welcomed as liberators and return home within weeks. Instead, they found themselves trapped in a brutal war that has shattered lives and morale. In this video, we tell the shocking story of Danil, a Russian infantryman who survived two months on the front lines, where desperation, violence, and psychological collapse drove soldiers to turn on each other. A harrowing firsthand account of war’s darkest realities.
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SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/rE9vRqkU
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NewsTranscript
00:00Many of the first Russian soldiers to march over the border and into Ukraine in 2022
00:04believed that they were heroes, sent to liberate the people from an oppressive and violent regime.
00:10They thought that their special military operation would be over in a matter of weeks,
00:15that they'd be welcomed with cheers and flowers, and that they'd be back home with their families
00:19in no time. They soon learned how wrong they were. Now, years later, with more than a million of
00:25their comrades killed or wounded, Russian frontline soldiers finally understood the horrific realities
00:31of this war. And it's no longer just Ukrainian soldiers, drones, and missiles that they need to
00:36worry about, because a new enemy is emerging, an enemy within the Russian ranks. Driven to the very
00:43edge of insanity by the sheer futility of this war and the horrific conditions in which they are
00:48forced to live, Russian soldiers are quite literally turning on one another. This was confirmed by one
00:53of their number who lived to tell the tale. His name is Daniel. He's 24 years old, and he recently
00:59sat down for a truly jaw-dropping interview with the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
01:05In that interview, Daniel told the full, harrowing story of the two months he spent in a Russian
01:10infantry assault unit. He described how he and his fellow soldiers were treated like cannon fodder by
01:15their commanders, how they were barely given enough supplies to survive a few days at the front lines,
01:20and how, in the end, a small group of them effectively lost their minds and began to slaughter one
01:25another. This is his story. Daniel was born and raised in the mountainous Transbaikal region of
01:31eastern Siberia. He had a difficult childhood. His father left the family home when Daniel was just 12
01:37years of age, and he ultimately began using drugs, which led to several arrests and suspended sentences.
01:43Despite this, he managed to graduate from the local school, moving on to a railway technical school,
01:48from which he graduated and going on to pursue a career in the transportation sector.
01:52By 2022, when the war began, he had no interest in signing up for the military. He had a steady
01:57job,
01:58working on construction of new railway lines and earning around 80,000 rubles or $1,100 per month,
02:03which may not sound like much from a Western perspective, but is a decent wage as far as
02:07Russia's rural regions are concerned. But things took a turn for the worse in the years that followed.
02:12Daniel claims he was being set up and set to be arrested for selling drugs, which he denies.
02:17He decided to flee to the other end of Russia, ending up in St. Petersburg,
02:21almost 3,000 miles from where he had been working, in Irkutsk. There, through friends,
02:26he was recommended to enlist in the Russian army. Seeing few other options available to him at the
02:31time, he travelled to Belgorod and signed his contract, officially placing his life in the
02:36hands of the Kremlin's war machine. His service began in August 2025, and he was initially assigned to
02:41the 60th Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment. That meant he was one of the lucky ones.
02:45Signing up for the Russian army today is effectively a game of Russian roulette.
02:49If you're lucky, you get assigned to a drone team or artillery unit, which at least gives
02:54you a fighting chance of survival, as it allows you to serve a reasonable distance from the front lines.
02:58If you're unlucky, however, you end up in one of the front-line assault squads,
03:02with an estimated survival time of a week or two at best.
03:05While stationed with the artillery crew, Daniel didn't undergo any kind of basic training course,
03:10but was effectively treated like an intern for the first six weeks of his service.
03:13He lived, ate, and slept alongside his fellow crewmates, with whom he developed friendships.
03:19For a time, his life was relatively comfortable. His duties mainly revolved around monitoring and
03:23cleaning shell casings, and he was stationed in the Belgorod region of Russia rather than anywhere
03:28in Ukraine, which meant that he was reasonably safe from drones or missile strikes.
03:32He told the interviewer that he and his fellow artillerymen would cook hearty meals for
03:36themselves or clubbed together to order food delivered by local taxi drivers.
03:40Eventually, however, things again took a turn for the worse.
03:44Daniel got into a fight with his commanding officer, whom he accused of threatening and
03:47verbally abusing him. He reached out to one of the higher-ups over telegram and demanded a
03:52transfer to another crew. He didn't realize at the time, but that would turn out to be an almost
03:57fatal mistake. Daniel thought he'd be moved to a different artillery unit. Instead, he was reassigned
04:02to an infantry regiment and sent straight to the front lines. It was scary to end up in the 82nd
04:08Infantry Regiment. Everyone talked about it as a place where people were sent, supposedly as punishment.
04:12If you didn't follow orders, if you didn't obey, they'd tell you,
04:15watch out, you're going to the 82nd Regiment to Vovchansk. That's exactly where he ended up.
04:21For reference, Vovchansk is just over the border from Russia in Ukraine's Kharkiv region.
04:25It's not an area that appears often in military news reports or headlines, but it's an area where
04:29Russian forces are present and have managed to capture a small patch of land, with multiple
04:34Ukrainian units also in the area, doing what they can to prevent further advances.
04:38Daniel will go on to spend exactly two months from February 17th to April 17th in this area.
04:44It will be the most dramatic two months of his entire life. He detailed the entire chain of
04:48events during his Novaya Gazeta interview. He began by explaining how he was taken to a
04:53deployment point, along with several other soldiers who had also been transferred.
04:58Some of them had been sent to the front lines because of disputes or bad behavior.
05:02He explained how one soldier had insulted an officer, for example, while another had
05:06stabbed a fellow soldier in the leg during a fight. He noted that one member of the group
05:10also wasn't Russian, but possibly Uzbek, and had been promised a Russian passport if he served for
05:15a year. This is a common trick that Russian recruiters use to pressure ethnic minorities,
05:20particularly those from Central Asian nations, into joining the army.
05:23In reality, the vast majority will die at the front lines and never have any hope of obtaining
05:27the passport they were promised. The group was taken to a classroom and given forms to fill out.
05:32They remained there for about a week and a half under surveillance and
05:35guided the entire time to prevent any escape attempts. All of a sudden, and without warning,
05:40he and several other soldiers were ordered to move out instantly.
05:43No one tells you about the attack. All my things, the ones that arrived with the artillery,
05:47clothes, sleeping bag, were left there. They'd probably already unpacked them.
05:51He was handed a backpack with some basic supplies paired up with a fellow soldier,
05:55a roughly 55-year-old man Daniel called Grandpa, loaded onto a quad bike and taken to his first
06:00front-line drop-off point, still being guarded the entire time. There wasn't any preparation
06:04or mission briefing. He didn't know where he was going or what he was going to have to do,
06:09and he could only imagine the types of dangers he would face. But he soon realized that there was,
06:13effectively, no other option but to obey. He describes how he and his comrades were told to
06:18cross a river and make their way towards some structures on the other side. During the crossing,
06:22he witnessed how brutal the Russian guards and commanders could be.
06:25We were crossing a wounded man, and I remember the guard yelling at him,
06:28if you don't get across, I'll push you down and you'll drown. He also recounted how another
06:32soldier was threatened with being shot in the knees because he was refusing to walk any further.
06:36He was questioned by the interviewer about why he didn't think of turning around,
06:40shooting the guard or fleeing for his life, since he knew that he was being marched to almost certain
06:44death. He explained that for him, that never felt like an option. He was too busy worrying about
06:49enemy drones and trying to stay in one piece to attempt any sort of daring desertion.
06:53Soon after getting over the river, the guards abandoned him, leaving Daniel and Grandpa to
06:58fulfill the rest of the mission alone. It was then that all hell broke loose. Quick side note,
07:03there's more where this came from, so if you're getting value from the military show,
07:06don't forget to subscribe. While moving towards their objective, Daniel and Grandpa heard the
07:11distinctive buzz of Ukraine's drones in the skies above them. They covered themselves with anti-drone
07:16blankets, hoping that the drones would pass them by. As Daniel explains, we were walking at night
07:21under the anti-drone blankets, then we heard something overhead. A Mavic, a Baba Yaga maybe.
07:26I reported over the radio that I thought I saw a Baba Yaga, and they told me,
07:29sit tight. We were sitting under the trees, practically next to each other,
07:33and something hit Grandpa, ripping off something, a leg or an arm, I don't know.
07:37It exploded loudly, and I got a small piece of shrapnel in my leg.
07:41In the aftermath, fearful for his life, Daniel ran away, leaving Grandpa to his fate.
07:46From there, he moved from dugout to dugout, often passing other Russian soldiers along the way,
07:50either on their own or in small groups. Several had lost their partners or were running low on
07:54supplies, so teamed up and pulled their resources. Daniel also explained how resupplies work on the
08:00frontlines, noting that they're sent out with just a few bottles of water and a few magazines of ammo,
08:04which can run out quite quickly. If they need something, they can request it over the radio,
08:09but they won't always get what they want, and may have to wait a while to receive anything at all.
08:13To deliver the goods, the Russians use repurposed FPV drones. Instead of carrying warheads,
08:18they're loaded with the likes of bottled water and packets of porridge, sent out to frontline locations
08:22and crash landing on the ground, often sending supplies scattering all over the place.
08:26If this is how Russian frontline soldiers are being kept alive, it's no wonder that so many
08:30of them end up dead within a matter of days. Not only are they given almost no training,
08:35minimal equipment and almost zero instruction about what they should be doing or how to defend
08:39themselves, but they're also made to rely on one of the most unreliable and inefficient
08:42resupply systems in modern military history. After a while, Daniel and his group were given
08:47coordinates of a house that they needed to enter and occupy. Again, they had no idea why this house
08:51was important or what was waiting for them inside. They just had to go there and hope for the best.
08:55It was really scary. You didn't know where you were going, why you were going.
08:59The group made it inside and found the building was empty. Not knowing how long they'd have to stay
09:04there until they received their next orders, they scavenged for supplies and tried to make their new
09:08temporary home a little more comfortable. By this stage, Daniel was in a group of six soldiers.
09:13The others were named Senya, Kit, Shmel, Shah and Emelaya. He explained that while some members
09:19of the group were relatively calm, there were a couple of big egos among them. Shah, for example,
09:24boasted about having been part of the Wagner Mercenary Group and said he wasn't afraid of
09:28anyone because of his many years of experience. Senya, too, claimed to have killed over 150 people.
09:34Soon, under intense pressure, these egos would clash. And this is where the story takes a very grim turn.
09:40The 24-year-old Daniel explains that the group found a large bottle of homemade wine and a couple of
09:45them
09:45decided to get drunk, play some music and yell, potentially putting all of their lives in jeopardy.
09:50Emelaya reportedly was frustrated by this and asked the others to keep it down.
09:54Shah snapped back and, according to Daniel, started screaming that he wasn't afraid of anything
09:58and started firing his machine gun at the walls through the window.
10:01Frightened for his life, Daniel left the building at that stage and went to another dwelling,
10:05along with Kit and Shmel, leaving the other three behind, but they continued to hear the sounds of
10:10gunfire from inside the first house. Soon after, Senya and Shah followed the others,
10:14where another argument broke out and ended in the most shocking way, with Senya killing Shah.
10:19He then went on to explain that Shah had allegedly killed Emelaya back at the first house,
10:23so Senya decided to take him out in retaliation. All of a sudden, a group of six had been cut
10:28to just
10:28four. And it wasn't because they'd encountered a squad of Ukrainian soldiers or walked into a
10:33booby-trapped area. They were actually relatively safe together and seemingly had just enough supplies
10:37to keep going while they planned their next move. Yet their inability to simply coexist with one
10:42another forced them to take the most dramatic of actions. And the violence didn't end there.
10:46As Daniel goes on to explain, the remaining soldiers went on to spend a couple of weeks
10:50living in another neighboring building. But one night, Senya and Kit started drinking again.
10:56Daniel doesn't know exactly what happened that evening as he fell asleep, but when he awoke,
11:00he heard the sound of gunfire and soon saw that Senya had shot Kit in the leg. Fortunately for Kit,
11:05it wasn't fatal. Having calmed down, Senya helped bandage up his comrade and got the group back to
11:10some sort of regular routine, searching for food, running around in the dark and exploring basements
11:16for any supplies they could find. Then Senya lost his mind once more. Daniel explained that he started
11:22complaining about Kit not pulling his weight, refusing to gather snow for the team to melt down into
11:26water and not helping out with the cooking of food either. Those might have been legitimate complaints,
11:31but they didn't deserve a death sentence. Clearly, Senya thought differently. When he was
11:36drunk one night on more wine than the team had found, he shot and killed Kit, who, according to Daniel,
11:41was begging for his life at the time. To make matters worse, Senya even tried to pressure Schmel
11:47into carrying out the execution for him, asserting himself as the dominant presence in what remained
11:51of the pack. At least, that's what he thought. Having by now killed at least two of his comrades
11:56in cold blood, Senya seemingly thought he had control of the other two, Daniel and Schmel.
12:01Indeed, in the aftermath, Daniel explained that the three Russians spent another couple of weeks
12:04together before Senya started becoming aggressive all over again.
12:08And then Senya started blaming us, saying that we're worthless, unworthy, afraid of everything.
12:13And he started raving about how we needed to storm some weapons, seize some houses, find some other
12:17people. He said that if we don't kill them, they will kill us. He went on and on. Daniel argued
12:22back,
12:23stating that the trio had enough food to get by and just needed to
12:26sit quietly in the house and wait for reinforcements or replacements to arrive.
12:30But his words weren't enough to calm Senya, who continued to become angrier,
12:34pointing his weapon at the two others and threatening to end their lives.
12:37He also continued to drink heavily and would shoot the walls of the house in a drunken state.
12:41In the end, Daniel and Schmel came to the only conclusion they could.
12:45So it turns out we had to kill Senya. They saw no other option. They'd already seen this man,
12:50this man who was supposed to be on the same side as them,
12:52brutally slaughter other Russian soldiers for no real reason.
12:55They knew it was only a matter of time until he did the same to them.
12:58For them, the only option was kill or be killed.
13:02So one night while Senya was asleep, Daniel shot him.
13:06After that, the remaining duo dragged Senya's body into another room and barricaded themselves
13:10in the basement where they remained quietly for another couple of weeks.
13:13They had a working radio, some food, and only left the safety of the structure if any resupply
13:18packages arrived. They also managed to scavenge some drone batteries and made a charger for their
13:22radio. They didn't know how long they'd have to stay there or what would happen next, but they
13:27at least didn't have to fear one of their own mowing them down a drunken frenzy.
13:31Soon after, a Ukrainian group arrived in the area and stormed the house.
13:35Daniel and Schmel wanted to surrender but were frightened of being killed, so stayed silent.
13:39In the end, the Ukrainians left and the two Russians continued to survive as best they could,
13:44but were slowly running out of supplies. Daniel explained that in the last week they barely ate
13:49a thing as many of their resupply packages were intercepted. They were forced to drink rain water,
13:54with Daniel writing what he thought might be his last ever message to his girlfriend back home,
13:59telling her he likely wouldn't make it out alive. In the end, however, the Ukrainians came back to the
14:03house and set it ablaze, smoking the Russians out. They surrendered immediately and were taken into
14:08captivity as prisoners of war. It's an astonishing tale, but it's entirely representative of the state
14:14of the Russian army today. Before they're even sent to the front lines, these soldiers know that
14:18their days are numbered. They know that they're simply going to be thrown into a fire by commanders
14:22who have no regard for their lives whatsoever, and even the sanest and most stable people would
14:27struggle to understand and adapt to such a terrifying reality. This is why so many soldiers
14:32behave in such extreme ways. Some turn on their commanders and attempt to go out in a blaze of
14:37glory. Some plot death-defying escape attempts. Some willingly undergo torture or hand over all their
14:43money to superior officers in a desperate bid to stay alive a few days longer. And some, like Senya,
14:48quite simply lose whatever sense of right or wrong they may have once had, turning on their fellow
14:52soldiers without an ounce of hesitation. An army like this has no hope of winning a war.
14:58So it's no wonder the Kremlin is becoming increasingly desperate, even turning to the
15:02Taliban for support, which you can learn more about in this video. Ukraine, meanwhile, is pushing its
15:07advantage, carrying out deep strike attacks on Russian supply lines to cut off the land corridor to
15:12Crimea, which is discussed in detail in this video. For more insightful analysis and military videos,
15:17subscribe to The Military Show today, and thank you as always for watching.
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