Russian soldier reveals grim conditions in Putin's army

Anton Heraszczenko, a Ukrainian politician and analyst, posted a poignant entry on social media detailing the account of Russian soldier Ivan Ivanovich Mikerov. The prisoner discusses the conditions on the front line. "They lie there and rot. Bodies are everywhere. At every step," said the prisoner about the situation in Vladimir Putin's army.

Ukrainian politician and former advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Anton Heraszczenko, posted a video on platform X in which Russian soldier Ivan Ivanovich Mikerov talks about, among other things, his service in the army and how Russian military personnel behave.

Ivan Ivanovich Mikerov hails from the city of Belozersk in the Vologda Oblast. Ukrainian soldiers near Kharkiv captured him. "He spoke about the catastrophic losses and forested areas full of rotting corpses of Russian soldiers," reads Heraszczenko's entry.

The captured soldier recounts how his colleague was murdered by Russian soldiers because "he had trouble walking." "So he wouldn't be a burden," Mikerov said.

Some are just bones, they must have been there for months. Others lie on their stomachs, right by the path we walked on. We carried some of them out in bags. Others still lie in the forest – relates the Russian.

- They should at least inform their mothers about it. But they just take the badges, documents, and money, if there is any. They take everything for themselves and that's it – says the soldier in the video.

The Russian assures that he did not want to serve in the Russian army but had no choice. - I spent 30 years in prison. My health is bad. I wanted to escape. I didn't want to serve there. But you can't escape. They will catch you. They treat you terribly - he said.