A Russian citizen with the call sign “Chornyi” first joined the Russian army to fight against Ukraine, but later changed his decision, switched sides, and now serves in the Russian Volunteer Corps. His story was reported by journalists from Suspilne.
Chornyi says that after switching sides, his relatives turned their backs on him. Despite this, he insists he does not want to fight alongside Russian occupiers.
“I don’t want to take part in this together with them… I made my decision — I would rather defend,” he claims.
“We were told we would be welcomed with open arms”
According to the fighter, he joined the Russian army at the beginning of 2022. In December of the same year, his unit was sent to temporarily occupied Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
There, he encountered the reality of the war for the first time, which differed sharply from what the Russian command had been telling them.
“We were told that we would almost be welcomed with open arms. But you look at the people... Ordinary civilians were simply blocking the military equipment with their own bodies as it tried to enter,” Chornyi says.
“They sent us as beacon”: unit was deployed to Donetsk
After seeing the true situation and the command's actions, the man decided to leave the Russian army. However, he and five other soldiers were punished and redeployed to the Donetsk direction.
There, he said, the unit was effectively left without support.
“That’s why they sent us. So we would act like a beacon, to see whether there was an enemy there or not, whether we would be eliminated or not,” he explains.
“I even thought about asking them to shoot me”
Eventually, Chornyi decided to surrender to Ukrainian soldiers. He said he did not want to return to the Russian army and even thought about death.
“I think I told the guard to shoot me. That thought crossed my mind. Because I wasn’t going back either,” he reveals.
He shares his intelligence on Russian capabilties
After two months in captivity, the man joined the Russian Volunteer Corps, which fights on Ukraine’s side. He says his experience in the Russian army enables him to relay critical information about enemy positions.
“In Enerhodar, it's the places where the enemy gathers, where they might be located, where equipment is stationed… there’s a lot of different information,” he notes.
Earlier, the commander of this unit said it is impossibleto convince Russia to pursue peace at the negotiating table. Moscow does not want peace. It wants to show the world its power on the battlefield. Russia continues to deploy around 30,000 soldiers every month.
