Russian Soldier Gets 15 Years for Surrendering, Complaining About Commanders

A Russian court found a soldier guilty and sentenced him to 15 years in prison on March 17 for “illegally” allowing himself to be captured in combat and then complaining to his Ukrainian captors that he was unhappy with his military commanders.

Roman Ivanishin, a former civilian forced into Russian army service in September 2022 as part of the massed mobilization of tens of thousands of reservists, was probably the first-ever Russian service member to be sent to prison as punishment for allowing Ukrainian forces to capture him, Kommersant reported on Tuesday.

A judge in Russia’s Far Eastern Island region Sakhalin agreed with prosecutor arguments that Ivanishin had disobeyed a standing order not to surrender to Ukrainian forces, had voluntarily attempted to surrender more than once, and that by handing himself over to the enemy had illegally deserted military service, the report said.

Ukrainian troops took Ivanishin prisoner in mid-2023 following a failed assault in the south-eastern Donetsk sector, near the villages Stepne and Novomyhailivka. Ivanishin said he was serving in an infantry unit of Russia’s 39th Motor Rifle Brigade before being captured.

In a video interview published by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) at the time, he said service conditions faced by Russian troops were bad and claimed unit commanders wasted soldier lives. He said unit morale was bad and called on fellow service personnel to quit fighting and surrender.

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“There is very heavy mortar shelling, people are demoralized, no one wants to fight. Many have already abandoned their positions and fled home,” Ivanishin said in the video published by the independent Astra news agency. “Many of us want to leave, surrender but the command does not allow it. Our leaders send them to all kinds of pits, mud, and people just sit there... There is fear and bewilderment in the fighting positions, we have no idea what to do next.”

Ivanishin returned to Sakhalin region in January 2024 following a prisoner exchange. Local prosecutors opened an investigation into his possible illegal actions connected with his surrender two months later.

Other soldiers’ testimonies

His allegations about poor leadership and service conditions in the Russian army have been echoed by other soldiers captured by Ukrainian forces more recently.

Konstantin Dobrinin, a Novosibirsk native who volunteered for army service from prison, was taken prisoner by elements of Ukraine’s 24th Mechanized Brigade in the Chasiv Yar sector in late March. In a video published by that unit on April 3, he said his commanders used soldiers as cannon fodder.   

“It’s like you are in a prison. There’s no communication. Everything is banned. Not a step to the left, not a step to the right. There are orders. If you run away, everything is simple. You get assigned to the 200 Brigade, and forwards in the minefield!”

In both the Russian army and within the AFU the number “200” is a slang term for a soldier who is killed in action. The term, originally a Red Army personnel assignment category, dates back to the era of the Afghanistan war.

Dobrinin told an interrogator that while in combat he heard officers safe in bunkers behind the lines giving radio orders to a wounded soldier alongside him to stop asking for medical evacuation and just to die quietly.

“It destroys your motivation and your morale,” Dobrinin said. “I have nothing to conceal. Why should I? In our company our wounded weren’t even recovered. Our commanders told us [that wounded Russian soldiers should] ‘Get back on your own.’ So if your leg is hit – or torn off – ‘Get back on your own’ – on one leg.”

Ukraine’s 60th Mechanized Brigade in a video interview published on Wednesday showed a man who identified himself as a Moscow construction worker captured in the eastern Luhansk sector in early April. He said that he volunteered for army service for the high salary and because recruiters promised him a rear area job but instead was put through two weeks of low-quality infantry training, after which he was obliged to use his own money to buy equipment such as boots, a shovel and an anti-drone blanket.

“They [his commanders] told us that if we complained we would be arrested and thrown into prison,” the man said. “Our instructors chased us forwards, they told us that [if we didn’t advance quickly enough] they would shoot us in the knee or kill us.” 

Artem Ushakov, a Russian infantryman captured by Ukraine’s 15th National Guard Brigade, stated in a video that the main attack tactic used by Russian forces was for small groups of foot soldiers to advance in short bursts, even at the expense of heavy casualties – with commanders willing to shoot down men who thought about retreating.

“If a guy gets to the point to where he’s been assigned, and there is no communication with commanders, then the next group that goes forward gets an order over the radio to throw a grenade into the hole where that guy was hiding,” Ushakov said. “If you want to try and go back, they shoot you, they eliminate you, you have no chance.”

Ushakov said he and his mates surrendered to a drone that led them to Ukrainian lines.

Salomachu Shokubodov, a Russian assault infantryman captured by Ukraine’s 25th Airborne Brigade, in the eastern Pokrovsk sector, told his paratrooper captors that soldiers have little idea where they are going. Soldiers picked for assaults were beaten by unit leaders to “encourage” them, he said.

“I didn’t know where we were going or what I was supposed to do,” Shokobudov said in video published by the Ukrainian army on Sunday. “The treatment we got wasn’t human. They would hit us with fists, with rifles. On the head. That’s how they beat us.”

A Russian soldier not identified by name, in a video conducted at a headquarters operated by Ukraine’s 40th Coastal Defense Brigade in the southern Kherson sector, told an interrogator he did not want to be exchanged and preferred to stay a prisoner rather than return to Russian army service.

 “I’m afraid. They [his commanders] are much worse than you [Ukrainian troops]. I can’t even imagine what would happen to me if I went back. I think they would abuse me or torture me, and then they would send me out again on an attack,” he said. “I prefer to sit here in a prison and rot… but they’ll make a traitor out of me. They’ll rub me out. They’ll put together the charges they want. They’ll make it so I won’t have a life. So, I don’t want to go back there.”

Vladislav Balgrabskiy, an officer and company commander in Russia’s 18th Motor Rifle Division, told the Ukrainian military reporter Yury Butusov in an interview published April 3 that the only rational choice for an honest Russian unit leader is to find a Ukrainian outfit and surrender.

“We went from our positions to yours [Ukrainian] without any problems, peacefully, to surrender, and even when we got to your most forward positions, the very first foxholes, I simply ate more food there than I had the week before,” he said. “I just wanted to get all my people out of there, to leave.”

NOTE: Videos reviewed by Kyiv Post for this article were consistent with known Ukrainian unit locations. The statements by Russian soldiers closely tallied with previous accounts of service conditions in Moscow’s forces. However, it was not possible to authenticate all video details.