A Russian soldier has defected to Ukraine, according to the Freedom for Russia Legion, the \u201cI Want to Live Project,\u201d and the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine. <\/p>\n
The defected soldier \u2013 with the call sign \u201cSilver\u201d \u2013 was an active serviceman for the unit \u201cStorm\u201d before volunteering for the Freedom for Russia Legion during the \u201cwinter of 2024,\u201d the legion, a group of Russian dissidents fighting for Ukraine, said. <\/p>\n
Silver, a 24-year-old from Siberia who joined the Russian army in 2021, gave his reasons for defecting in an interview posted on YouTube by the \u201cI Want to Live\u201d project \u2013 a Ukrainian government initiative which receives appeals from Russian servicemen in Ukraine wishing to surrender. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to serve in the army, I gave an oath to protect my motherland. My motherland is there [in Russia] and no-one attacked it. I didn\u2019t want to serve for Russia during the war and didn\u2019t want to die for Putin,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Silver took part in the fighting in Ukraine\u2019s eastern Avdiivka area from the Russian side of the border as a drone operator, he explained in the interview. He had also previously served on China\u2019s border with Russia. <\/p>\n
\u201cSilver was a member of the resistance for several months and transmitted important operational information to us (the location of forces and equipment, plans, tasks in a specific section of the front, etc.),\u201d the Freedom for Russia Legion said. <\/p>\n
Escaping the Storm unit, Silver \u201cactivated explosive devices\u201d in the unit\u2019s headquarters, seriously injuring the commander and several senior officers, according to the legion. <\/p>\n
The legion posted a video to its YouTube channel taken from a hidden camera claiming to show the operation. Several men are seen in the video in army uniforms before an explosion erupts, causing a fire. <\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the retreat, Silver mined the path and went along the agreed route. The legion command, together with the \u2018I Want to Live\u2019 team, organized Silver\u2019s exit from the combat line. Now he is undergoing a basic training course as a legion recruit,\u201d the Legion said. <\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s intelligence department said the operation to get Silver out was named \u201cOcheret.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Russian was motivated to cooperate with Ukraine by the systematic war crimes and other crimes of the command, including extrajudicial executions, beatings, and robberies in the occupation unit,\u201d the Defense Intelligence said on Telegram on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Silver claimed in the interview that he had seen some Russian soldiers killed by their own commander. <\/p>\n
The Defense Intelligence said Ukraine was able to obtain valuable intelligence on the location, number, and intentions of Russian forces \u201cin a particular frontline area\u201d because of the interaction with Silver. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Russian soldier has defected to Ukraine, according to the Freedom for Russia Legion, the \u201cI Want to Live Project,\u201d and the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine. The defected soldier \u2013 with the call sign \u201cSilver\u201d \u2013 was an active serviceman for the unit \u201cStorm\u201d before volunteering for the Freedom for Russia Legion during the \u201cwinter <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6683","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}