Russian Soldier Ruslan Anitin Surrenders to Ukrainian Drone – A Last Attempt to Save His Life

The Russian soldier Ruslan Anitin (30) makes a last attempt to save his life. He surrenders to a Ukrainian drone.

It’s the newspaper Wall Street Journal which tells the story of the soldier who surrendered to Ukrainian forces in early May.

The video of Anitin signaling to the drone that he wants to surrender shows a man’s desire to survive the war.

Two wounded fellow soldiers are said to have taken their own lives. Anitin himself finds himself in seemingly endless trenches near Bakhmut. Totally exhausted. Alone.

On a screen in the Ukrainian command post, the soldiers watch his prayer. A Ukrainian colonel confers with other officers and then gives his order:

– Try to take him alive!

The same drones have been used by the Ukrainian forces to locate the enemy – and then drop small bombs on the Russian soldiers.

Unarmed, Anitin gestures with his hands for them to stop attacking. The video footage shows him running his finger across his throat and shaking his head – a plea that they won’t kill him if he surrenders.

The Wall Street Journal says that an attack drone has already been deployed to kill Anitin, according to the pilot, a 26-year-old nicknamed “Boxer”. After seeing Anitin beg to live, “Boxer” canceled the operation.

– Despite the fact that he is an enemy, even though he has killed our boys, I still felt sorry for him, he says to the Wall Street Journal.

The Ukrainians send a package to Anitin with the message: “Follow the drone”.

Ruslan Anitin does.

Today, just over a month later, he sits as a prisoner of war in an internment camp in the Kharkiv region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj has several times – in Russian – called on the Russian soldiers to surrender, instead of dying a senseless death on the battlefield.

In connection with the battle for Kherson in November, the Ukrainian army used a hotline and chat service called “I want to live” to get Russian soldiers to surrender.

Anitin tells the Wall Street Journal that they were told by a Wagner soldier that they would be shot if they surrendered or retreated from their positions.

In September, the Russian parliament toughened the penalties for soldiers who disobey orders, desert or surrender to the enemy.

Even though Rusland Anitin risks prison if he returns home to Russia in a prisoner exchange, that’s all he wants now.

– Let them lock me up. I would like to go home to my family, and never experience the same as I have seen here, he says to the American newspaper.

PS: Mediazona and BBC Russian edition has the names of approximately 25,000 Russian soldiers who died in the war. They believe that the real number is probably twice as high, approximately 50,000. Russia has not provided figures for the number of dead soldiers since September 2022, when they operated with approximately 6,000.