The deceased soldier from unit 40463 of the 123rd brigade of the "LNR" was declared dead four days before his actual death, in his phone were unsent messages in which he talked about electric torture, his wife told the publication Astra*. The death certificate received by Mikhail's wife indicates the date of death as July 22. Judging by the messages, the man was alive at least until July 26. The widow claims that in the last video he recorded for her, the half-alive soldier says he crawled back halfway. He was never evacuated or given help.
Mikhail (name changed) was sent as an assault trooper to the 1st battalion for "unauthorized leave of the unit": in April 2024, after being wounded, the man was in the hospital and refused to undergo a military medical commission, as he was forced to go home for a week because his child was in intensive care. After this, he voluntarily appeared at the commandant's office, from where the military police took him — despite the fact that he was moving on crutches — and sent him to a penal battalion.
The last time the soldier's wife contacted him was on June 18, and she learned of his death on August 3, when the company medic called her and asked, "where to take his [body]." Along with the deceased's body, she received his phone, in which she found unsent messages, from which she learned that at the end of June, during an assault, her husband lost a finger, there was also a photo of a decaying hand. After he returned, he was "beaten with electricity all night" and sent back to the assault, the messages say.
On June 26, Mikhail wrote that if he managed to get out, the hand would have to be amputated. In July, the man himself cut off his decaying finger.
The deceased left behind two children, one of whom is disabled.
* Recognized in Russia as a "foreign agent".