“Better Prison Than the Russian Army”: One Tortured Soldier’s Escape From an Assault Unit

Mikhail Rodionov claims he joined the Russian army to avoid a prison sentence. He was offered a military contract instead of incarceration and promised service in the rear, digging trenches, and physical labor without taking part in assaults. He believed the recruiters. Because of his health problems, he hoped he would definitely not be sent to the front line.

At first, besides digging fortifications, he was also made to carry out far harder and more dangerous tasks: evacuating the wounded and the dead from forward positions. Then, after nearly a year and a half of such work, the order came: 

“You’re going on an assault.”

The preparation for the attack was absurd, says Rodionov. He and his partner were hastily shown how to use electric scooters and the civilian outdoor navigation app Alpine Quest GPS, which Russian forces use. After that, they were shown a photo of a ruined two-story building near Petropavlivka, a Ukrainian village near Kupiansk, the Kharkiv region, where heavy fighting has recently been underway, and ordered to reach it at dawn on electric scooters and dig in there.

“Preventive conversation”

Rodionov says that he had previously recovered the bodies of Russian soldiers from that same sector of the front: assault troops there had managed to advance only about one and a half kilometers (less than a mile) before being killed. The two-story building they were ordered to reach was about 7 kilometers (4.5 miles) away. “It was obvious that this was completely unrealistic,” Rodionov says. So he and his comrade decided to flee.

“We were caught 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from the Russian border,” says Rodionov. “They were Chechens. They beat us and then handed us over to the military police. They kept us in a basement and beat us several more times. At night, someone with the call sign Volchara arrived and sent me to a headquarters in Vysoke, in the Luhansk region. There, they asked me: will you go on an assault? I explained that I was afraid and that my health was very poor. Then they sent me to a man with the call sign Cheliaba and ordered him to have a ‘preventive conversation’ with me.”

That “conversation,” Rodionov says, consisted of being bound with tape, having wires shoved into his mouth, and being shocked with electricity. All the while, they kept repeating, “We’ll make a soldier out of you.” After two hours of torture, Rodionov agreed to go on the near-certainly deadly mission.

PIN code

The pressure did not end, however. At one checkpoint, Russian soldiers learned that he had just left the front and had therefore not used his bank card, Rodionov said. Realizing that it must include his accumulated pay over a long period, they began demanding that Rodionov hand over money, supposedly for a motorcycle for combat tasks. He agreed.

Then the Russians changed their minds. Claiming that the weather was turning, they said they now needed an ATV instead. Rodionov was again forced to agree, but only on the condition that they take him to an ATM so he could withdraw the cash himself and hand it over. At the checkpoint, however, they demanded that he tell them his PIN code. When they realized he would not agree, they took him back to Cheliaba’s torture site.

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“He beat me again,” said Rodionov. “Tied me up completely and tortured me with electric shocks for another two hours. The whole time, he didn’t even ask or say anything. He pierced my cheek with scissors. Only after that did he start demanding the PIN code. In the end, I couldn’t take it anymore and told him.”

Some time later, Mikhail was sent somewhere else and again ordered to prepare for an assault. He was not even told which unit he had been assigned to. Rodionov pretended to pack his bag for combat, but instead said he threw away his ammunition, packed water and a few cans of food, and ran again.

Third time’s the charm 

Once again, the fugitive was caught, this time in the settlement of Arapivka in the Luhansk region. He was sent to the settlement of Troitske, where he was again shocked with electricity because he could not say which unit he had fled from, since he simply did not know. 

When Rodionov told the military police about the torture he had already twice endured at the hands of Cheliaba, they reassured him that this time he would be sent somewhere better. Instead, they sent him back to the same torture site for a third time.

“Cheliaba tied me up with tape again, beat me again,” he said. “He questioned me about what I had told the military police. I lied and said nothing important. Then they just threw me, bound, onto the ground outside. Cheliaba would come out from time to time, smoke, and flick cigarette butts at me. He said that if I so much as moved, the beatings would continue. At one point, some colonel with the call sign ‘Matros’ came over, stepped over me, and asked, ‘What’s this here?’ He went into Cheliaba’s room, they talked, the colonel came back out, stepped over me again, and simply walked away.”

Early the next morning, Rodionov was finally picked up and taken to some unit. Later, he learned that it was the 1st Guards Tank Regiment, part of the 2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division, military unit 58198.

There, he was sent for assault training. It consisted of teaching the men to run up to Ukrainian fortifications carrying anti-tank mines and throw the explosives inside. The training lasted two days.

“After that, they assigned me to some group and named the man in charge, call sign ‘Ryba,’” he said. “In the morning, they gave the order: today is the assault, get ready. I asked to go to the toilet. Instead, I ran toward the Ukrainian positions. I could no longer go back to my own side. They had promised to shoot me like a dog if I tried to run again. I didn’t see any other option.”

Rodionov surrendered to the Ukrainian military and is now in captivity. He says it saved his life: “If my own side had caught me again, I’d already be dead.” 

“Stay home”

Rodionov sums up his experience with this advice:

“To all Russian soldiers, I say this: don’t believe the army. They throw people into the meat grinder. In just three months, I personally pulled about 50 dead bodies from the front line. Coming back alive is almost impossible. Don’t go to war, Russians. Don’t invade other people’s countries. This is not our land. Stay home. Work in factories. Even if you are facing a prison sentence, serve your time, believe me. Ten years behind bars is better than the army. There is no human treatment there. You won’t see your pay either; they simply take it away. Use your head. Don’t go to war. War is death.”

Mikhail Rodionov’s story is another testimony to how violence and intimidation are used in the Russian army to force people into assault operations. For some, it ends in death. For him, it ended in captivity, which he calls his salvation.

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