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‘Commanders Saw Us as Expendable': A Russian Soldier's View of the War

Hindustan Times

24-07-2025

Politics
Hindustan Times

‘Commanders Saw Us as Expendable': A Russian Soldier's View of the War

Mikhail Simdyankin was taking the bus to work in St. Petersburg last summer when he passed army recruitment billboards promising generous payouts to those willing to do 'real man's work.' PREMIUM 'Commanders Saw Us as Expendable': A Russian Soldier's View of the War The college graduate enjoyed a middle-class life in Russia's cultural capital, where he lived with his wife, Ksenia, a beauty salon worker, and their dog and two cats. He had a good job as a stock manager at a warehouse—but he also had unpaid utility bills. The military signing bonus dwarfed his monthly pay of around 90,000 rubles, or $1,100. The bonus kept going up. In July 2024, it was 1.3 million rubles. Several weeks later, it passed 1.7 million. After returning home from work one evening he told Ksenia: 'If it goes to 2 million, I'm signing up.' He had to wait only three days. Ksenia pleaded with him not to go. He thought the military would let him serve in the rear, given his lack of combat experience. The little he knew about the war came from triumphalist reports on state television. Three weeks later, Simdyankin was on the front lines in Ukraine, where his second mission left him with shrapnel injuries in his leg. Shortly after, with a debilitating limp, he was ordered to charge into a ruined factory complex where two dozen of his comrades, wounded and starving, had been stuck for months—while Ukrainian forces were closing in from three sides. Simdyankin in February. Simdyankin was among the hundreds of thousands of Russians who have been lured into the military—often drawn by propaganda, offers of lucrative pay and, for some, a chance to avoid prison time. They regularly find themselves dispatched hastily to the front, where Russia's army fights with brutal Soviet-style tactics that pay for small gains with a colossal loss in lives. Russia ramped up its assault this summer, and this month President Trump announced a deal to send weapons and air defenses to Ukraine. Western officials estimate that Russia has suffered more than 1 million casualties in Ukraine, with at least 250,000 soldiers dead. Some 400,000 Ukrainians have been wounded or killed. Simdyankin survived against the odds. Most of the 100 soldiers in his assault group were severely injured or killed in less than a month. His mission to the factory turned into a harrowing sprint—but what he saw when he reached the garrison left him even more shaken. 'Our commanders saw us as expendable,' said Simdyankin, who is now being held at a prisoner-of-war camp. 'They didn't care whether or not we survived.' This account is based on interviews with Russian soldiers held as prisoners of war at four locations throughout Ukraine and conversations with Ukrainians who fought against them for control of the factory. The Wall Street Journal also reviewed intercepted radio communications and videos recorded by soldiers on both sides to capture a rare picture of Russian troops' experience of the war. Simdyankin with his sister and nephew in a St. Petersburg restaurant last year. Lured in Simdyankin—a lanky 27-year-old with a soft voice and receding hairline—signed up for the military in August. He submitted his documents, passed blood tests for hepatitis and HIV, and was told to report for training several days later. He chose the military call sign Zenit, after his beloved St. Petersburg soccer team. He told Ksenia and his sister, Nastia, that he would be home within a few months, free of debt. Up to that point, the family believed the war would simply pass them by. Nastia said she was shocked Simdyankin was willing to give up a good life to join it. Simdyankin's training, at two different locations of Russia's 138th Brigade, was limited to two weeks of shooting practice and basic first aid. He sent Ksenia the first tranche of his bonus: 500,000 rubles. She bought herself an iPhone and cleared some of the overdue bills. In early September, he was taken to a town on the border with Ukraine. Trucks arrived each morning and evening, filled with wood for building trenches and fresh recruits tasked to dig them. Armored vehicles and multiple rocket launchers kicked up dust as they drove through. On his sixth morning there, a commander gathered Simdyankin and a dozen others and told them, 'You guys are the third assault group.' They were being sent to Vovchansk, 5 miles away in northeastern Ukraine, where a fierce fight was unfolding. The Russians had taken control of the northern bank of a narrow river bisecting the town, while Ukraine controlled the south. Russia's ultimate target was Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, but Vovchansk stood in the way. Brutal house-to-house combat raged. That day, Simdyankin said, 'is when I understood we're in deep s—.' Destroyed buildings in Vovchansk in October. 'Please forgive me' In Vovchansk, he and three other men were sent to assault a house occupied by a group of Ukrainian troops. Don your body armor, load your rifle and grab two grenades, he was told. The men approached the house at dusk, threw grenades through one window, and entered through another. Two of the Russians were immediately killed by machine-gun fire, Simdyankin said. He and one other fighter withdrew. Several days later, he was dispatched on a second mission with another soldier: to throw an activated antitank mine through the window of a Ukrainian-held house. This time, the enemy troops saw them coming, and opened fire. A bullet ricocheted off Simdyankin's rifle, spraying his legs and torso with tiny metal fragments. He saw the other Russian crumple to the ground. He ran through a hole in the ruins of a nearby building, crawled into the gutted basement and prayed he wouldn't be found. He lay there for hours, listening to the Ukrainian troops talking to each other. He tied a basic bandage around his bleeding left leg, and tried to sleep. He sipped his only bottle of water, and waited for the Ukrainians to move on. The next morning, an explosion sent bricks onto his back, but he didn't dare leave. Thinking of his loved ones and the life he had left behind in St. Petersburg, he wept. On the third day, he fumbled for his phone, opened the Russian VK social media app and drafted messages to his wife and sister. 'I love you. Please forgive me,' he wrote, hoping the words would be delivered once his phone was back online. 'We'll meet in the next life.' Then he lowered the safety catch of his damaged Kalashnikov, rested his chin on the muzzle and placed his finger on the trigger. 'I wanted the ordeal to end,' he said. But he couldn't do it. 'It turned out I was stronger than I thought,' he said. The following morning, unable to hear the Ukrainians, he decided to take his chances. He mustered his remaining energy and staggered out of the ruined house. In the four days he had been in hiding, the entire street had been razed to the ground. On another street, he narrowly avoided a Ukrainian drone strike by taking cover in a nearby building, where he encountered Russian soldiers. 'I'm one of you!' he cried. 'It's Zenit!' The men thought he had died. Simdyankin at a temporary facility holding Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine in December. Simdyankin had shrapnel injuries to his leg and thigh. He had lost weight, after going days without food. He got less than a week to recover. On Sept. 22, his commander told him reinforcements were badly needed at the sprawling machine-parts plant where dozens of Russians were holding off against a Ukrainian onslaught. Every one of the 100 or so troops in Simdyankin's unit was either severely wounded or dead, the commander said. Simdyankin would have to go. Recalling that moment later, he said: 'I just felt a deep sense of injustice.' He arrived in a basement where five other soldiers were filling backpacks with bags of rice, buckwheat and pasta; cans of tinned meat; packs of painkillers and cigarettes; and ammunition. As night fell, they awaited the command to set off. His partner would be Ivan Shabunko, a 47-year-old construction worker who had joined the military to avoid a prison sentence after a drunken argument with a police officer in the spring of 2024. Shabunko shared Simdyankin's view of the mission that lay ahead. 'We all knew it was a one-way ticket,' Shabunko said. The factory Before the war, the Vovchansk plant had exported engine and airplane parts throughout the former Soviet Union, helping equip the Russian combat helicopters and jet fighters now being used to attack Ukrainian cities. Its 30 multistory buildings provided perfect cover for an invasion force. By the time of Simdyankin's mission, the Russians had been holding the factory for months. But Ukraine was closing in and the garrison was almost out of provisions. In a cellphone video recorded inside the factory, a bearded Russian soldier asked, 'Surely this is going to end?' The soldier beside him replied, 'I hope it's soon.' Another soldier filmed flies swarming around his bowl of pasta and tinned meat soup. 'This is what lunch looks like,' he said. Ukraine had blown up three armored vehicles with provisions on their way to the factory. Drones carrying supplies were either missing their target—a hole in the roof of one building—or were downed by Ukraine's electronic jamming. Squad commanders railed against those who refused orders to collect food or to go on assaults against Ukrainian positions, accusing some of feigning injuries. Those who went out were often injured or killed by Ukrainian fire. 'Just sticking your nose out could end your life,' said Aleksandr Trofimov, a soldier in his early 40s who was injured by shrapnel after trying to salvage food in July. The men inside the factory were feuding over the remaining supplies. 'Where the f— did six half-liter bottles go?' one Russian asked in a radio exchange intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence. A subordinate responded: 'Yeah, even the water I left this morning, and asked them not to touch, has been drunk.' At least one wounded fighter shot himself inside the factory, unable to handle the misery of it all, according to three soldiers who were there. At one point in September, one Russian soldier was complaining to another over the radio, saying there were only seven combat-ready people remaining and assailing the military command's empty promises to give the exhausted men a break. 'They'll keep throwing us forward until there's no one f—ing left,' he said. The other man replied: 'Same story, different day.' 'Moving skeletons' Simdyankin and Shabunko set out for the factory before dawn on Sept. 23, leading a group of four other men across a park that was mined and covered in deep holes from shelling. They advanced in groups of two several minutes apart, guided by Russian drones emitting a faint blue light overhead. Pain shot through Simdyankin's injured leg. He had a rifle slung across his shoulder, and his rucksack was stuffed with nearly 90 pounds of supplies. Once he made it to about 100 yards from the factory, he stopped to regain his breath, taking shelter behind a tree. In the moonlight, he saw Shabunko's lumbering silhouette. 'Hurry up!' he shouted. They covered the final 100 yards together, as fast as they could. They ran inside just as an airplane detonated a powerful glide bomb over the facility, showering them with bricks and mortar. Shabunko grabbed the radio and told his unit commander the two men had made it. The officer congratulated them. The four others in their group, he said, had not. Ivan Shabunko in a Ukrainian detention center in February. Inside, emaciated figures Simdyankin later described as 'moving skeletons' looked up at them. With their faces blackened by soot and dust, they cowered behind machine tools lining the walls that provided some shelter from the relentless bombardment. Shards of glass and bullet casings littered the floor. Bloodied bandages and syringes lay in a pile. Of more than 100 Russian troops who had set up positions inside the plant months earlier, Simdyankin and Shabunko were told, no more than 25 now remained alive, spread out across two buildings in the complex. One soldier, who was badly wounded and could only see through one eye, lay on a bed of dirty clothes with a gun pressed tightly against his chest. Three dead bodies were decomposing in the building, Simdyankin said. The new arrivals handed out rations of food and ammo—enough to keep the nine men in their section going for the next two days. That evening they helped prepare a meal of buckwheat, canned meat and rice. The men sat and ate silently, lacking the power or inclination to speak. In the morning they set about fortifying their position. They stacked cardboard boxes and even tin cans on top of the heavy machine equipment to provide some scant cover from the constant drone and artillery strikes. Time was almost out. Members of the Timur Special Forces Unit, a group of elite Ukrainian soldiers overseen by the country's military intelligence agency, were methodically working their way through the factory. That evening, in another section of the plant, a Russian commander approached the Ukrainians and negotiated terms of surrender for his men. The next day, another Ukrainian squad crept along the rubble around the warehouse where Simdyankin, Shabunko and the others were holding out, and launched a final assault. A fast-moving conflagration overwhelmed the Russians in the warehouse, Simdyankin said. He felt intense heat, and temporarily lost his sight. The Ukrainians had thrown antitank mines and multiple grenades into the building, seeking to flush the Russians out. 'Give yourselves up!' they shouted. The Russians fired back. The Ukrainians had the building under siege. 'This whole place is about to be destroyed,' one of the Ukrainians says in footage filmed by a camera mounted to his helmet. 'We all want to live, just like you do.' Slowly, nervously, the Russians emerged into the daylight. Some of the captured men's faces and hair were so burned that one Ukrainian soldier involved in the operation said 'they looked like they just had come out of an oven.' The Russians were given water and cigarettes, but they kept pleading for food. 'They were starving us to death,' one tells his captors in footage from the scene. Several hours after Simdyankin and Shabunko were led out of the area, Russia fired thermobaric 'Scorching Sun' rockets that engulfed the vast compound in fire. Among those incinerated in the towering blaze were several badly wounded Russian soldiers, according to those taken captive, as well as the corpses no one had been able to collect. 'A stupid mistake' A few days after his capture, Simdyankin was allowed to call his wife for the first time in weeks. 'Forgive me for going to war,' he is shown telling her in a video Ukraine posted online, lowering his head to the table as tears streamed down his face, almost unrecognizable because it was so badly burned at the factory. A screenshot of a video Ukraine posted online showing an interview with Simdyankin, his face badly burned. Five months after that call, a very different Simdyankin walked into the visiting room of a prisoner-of-war camp in eastern Ukraine. The tall, athletic soccer player now sported an inmate's buzz-cut, and the burns on his face had healed, leaving behind a prominent scar. He had been treated for his injuries and had regained weight. He spent his days sewing and weaving baskets with other prisoners, and watching Ukrainian television reports about the war and talks to end it. His sister sent him the scores of Zenit soccer matches, relayed in typed messages delivered by the Red Cross. In an interview, she said she worried that he could be sent to fight again after he returns home. Reflecting on his monthlong ordeal in the Russian army, Simdyankin said the most terrifying part was seeing healthy young men, some of whom he called friends, die for no reason. He lamented getting foolishly swept up in 'a pointless war.' All he wanted, he said, was to be included in a prisoner swap that would bring him home, so that he could pick up where he left off in St. Petersburg, starting a family and building a normal life. 'I'm really angry at myself. I made a stupid mistake,' he said. 'If I could, I would go back in time and give all that money back.' Simdyankin is one of more than 400 Russians at the POW camp where he is being held. Write to Matthew Luxmoore at 'Commanders Saw Us as Expendable': A Russian Soldier's View of the War 'Commanders Saw Us as Expendable': A Russian Soldier's View of the War 'Commanders Saw Us as Expendable': A Russian Soldier's View of the War 'Commanders Saw Us as Expendable': A Russian Soldier's View of the War 'Commanders Saw Us as Expendable': A Russian Soldier's View of the War 'Commanders Saw Us as Expendable': A Russian Soldier's View of the War

Mint

24-07-2025

Politics
Mint

‘Commanders saw us as expendable': A Russian soldier's view of the war

Mikhail Simdyankin was taking the bus to work in St. Petersburg last summer when he passed army recruitment billboards promising generous payouts to those willing to do 'real man's work." The college graduate enjoyed a middle-class life in Russia's cultural capital, where he lived with his wife, Ksenia, a beauty salon worker, and their dog and two cats. He had a good job as a stock manager at a warehouse—but he also had unpaid utility bills. The military signing bonus dwarfed his monthly pay of around 90,000 rubles, or $1,100. The bonus kept going up. In July 2024, it was 1.3 million rubles. Several weeks later, it passed 1.7 million. After returning home from work one evening he told Ksenia: 'If it goes to 2 million, I'm signing up." He had to wait only three days. Ksenia pleaded with him not to go. He thought the military would let him serve in the rear, given his lack of combat experience. The little he knew about the war came from triumphalist reports on state television. Three weeks later, Simdyankin was on the front lines in Ukraine, where his second mission left him with shrapnel injuries in his leg. Shortly after, with a debilitating limp, he was ordered to charge into a ruined factory complex where two dozen of his comrades, wounded and starving, had been stuck for months—while Ukrainian forces were closing in from three sides. Simdyankin in February. Simdyankin was among the hundreds of thousands of Russians who have been lured into the military—often drawn by propaganda, offers of lucrative pay and, for some, a chance to avoid prison time. They regularly find themselves dispatched hastily to the front, where Russia's army fights with brutal Soviet-style tactics that pay for small gains with a colossal loss in lives. Russia ramped up its assault this summer, and this month President Trump announced a deal to send weapons and air defenses to Ukraine. Western officials estimate that Russia has suffered more than 1 million casualties in Ukraine, with at least 250,000 soldiers dead. Some 400,000 Ukrainians have been wounded or killed. Simdyankin survived against the odds. Most of the 100 soldiers in his assault group were severely injured or killed in less than a month. His mission to the factory turned into a harrowing sprint—but what he saw when he reached the garrison left him even more shaken. 'Our commanders saw us as expendable," said Simdyankin, who is now being held at a prisoner-of-war camp. 'They didn't care whether or not we survived." This account is based on interviews with Russian soldiers held as prisoners of war at four locations throughout Ukraine and conversations with Ukrainians who fought against them for control of the factory. The Wall Street Journal also reviewed intercepted radio communications and videos recorded by soldiers on both sides to capture a rare picture of Russian troops' experience of the war. Simdyankin with his sister and nephew in a St. Petersburg restaurant last year. Simdyankin—a lanky 27-year-old with a soft voice and receding hairline—signed up for the military in August. He submitted his documents, passed blood tests for hepatitis and HIV, and was told to report for training several days later. He chose the military call sign Zenit, after his beloved St. Petersburg soccer team. He told Ksenia and his sister, Nastia, that he would be home within a few months, free of debt. Up to that point, the family believed the war would simply pass them by. Nastia said she was shocked Simdyankin was willing to give up a good life to join it. Simdyankin's training, at two different locations of Russia's 138th Brigade, was limited to two weeks of shooting practice and basic first aid. He sent Ksenia the first tranche of his bonus: 500,000 rubles. She bought herself an iPhone and cleared some of the overdue bills. In early September, he was taken to a town on the border with Ukraine. Trucks arrived each morning and evening, filled with wood for building trenches and fresh recruits tasked to dig them. Armored vehicles and multiple rocket launchers kicked up dust as they drove through. On his sixth morning there, a commander gathered Simdyankin and a dozen others and told them, 'You guys are the third assault group." They were being sent to Vovchansk, 5 miles away in northeastern Ukraine, where a fierce fight was unfolding. The Russians had taken control of the northern bank of a narrow river bisecting the town, while Ukraine controlled the south. Russia's ultimate target was Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, but Vovchansk stood in the way. Brutal house-to-house combat raged. That day, Simdyankin said, 'is when I understood we're in deep s—." Destroyed buildings in Vovchansk in October. In Vovchansk, he and three other men were sent to assault a house occupied by a group of Ukrainian troops. Don your body armor, load your rifle and grab two grenades, he was told. The men approached the house at dusk, threw grenades through one window, and entered through another. Two of the Russians were immediately killed by machine-gun fire, Simdyankin said. He and one other fighter withdrew. Several days later, he was dispatched on a second mission with another soldier: to throw an activated antitank mine through the window of a Ukrainian-held house. This time, the enemy troops saw them coming, and opened fire. A bullet ricocheted off Simdyankin's rifle, spraying his legs and torso with tiny metal fragments. He saw the other Russian crumple to the ground. He ran through a hole in the ruins of a nearby building, crawled into the gutted basement and prayed he wouldn't be found. He lay there for hours, listening to the Ukrainian troops talking to each other. He tied a basic bandage around his bleeding left leg, and tried to sleep. He sipped his only bottle of water, and waited for the Ukrainians to move on. The next morning, an explosion sent bricks onto his back, but he didn't dare leave. Thinking of his loved ones and the life he had left behind in St. Petersburg, he wept. On the third day, he fumbled for his phone, opened the Russian VK social media app and drafted messages to his wife and sister. 'I love you. Please forgive me," he wrote, hoping the words would be delivered once his phone was back online. 'We'll meet in the next life." Then he lowered the safety catch of his damaged Kalashnikov, rested his chin on the muzzle and placed his finger on the trigger. 'I wanted the ordeal to end," he said. But he couldn't do it. 'It turned out I was stronger than I thought," he said. The following morning, unable to hear the Ukrainians, he decided to take his chances. He mustered his remaining energy and staggered out of the ruined house. In the four days he had been in hiding, the entire street had been razed to the ground. On another street, he narrowly avoided a Ukrainian drone strike by taking cover in a nearby building, where he encountered Russian soldiers. 'I'm one of you!" he cried. 'It's Zenit!" The men thought he had died. Simdyankin at a temporary facility holding Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine in December. Simdyankin had shrapnel injuries to his leg and thigh. He had lost weight, after going days without food. He got less than a week to recover. On Sept. 22, his commander told him reinforcements were badly needed at the sprawling machine-parts plant where dozens of Russians were holding off against a Ukrainian onslaught. Every one of the 100 or so troops in Simdyankin's unit was either severely wounded or dead, the commander said. Simdyankin would have to go. Recalling that moment later, he said: 'I just felt a deep sense of injustice." He arrived in a basement where five other soldiers were filling backpacks with bags of rice, buckwheat and pasta; cans of tinned meat; packs of painkillers and cigarettes; and ammunition. As night fell, they awaited the command to set off. His partner would be Ivan Shabunko, a 47-year-old construction worker who had joined the military to avoid a prison sentence after a drunken argument with a police officer in the spring of 2024. Shabunko shared Simdyankin's view of the mission that lay ahead. 'We all knew it was a one-way ticket," Shabunko said. Before the war, the Vovchansk plant had exported engine and airplane parts throughout the former Soviet Union, helping equip the Russian combat helicopters and jet fighters now being used to attack Ukrainian cities. Its 30 multistory buildings provided perfect cover for an invasion force. By the time of Simdyankin's mission, the Russians had been holding the factory for months. But Ukraine was closing in and the garrison was almost out of provisions. In a cellphone video recorded inside the factory, a bearded Russian soldier asked, 'Surely this is going to end?" The soldier beside him replied, 'I hope it's soon." Another soldier filmed flies swarming around his bowl of pasta and tinned meat soup. 'This is what lunch looks like," he said. Ukraine had blown up three armored vehicles with provisions on their way to the factory. Drones carrying supplies were either missing their target—a hole in the roof of one building—or were downed by Ukraine's electronic jamming. Squad commanders railed against those who refused orders to collect food or to go on assaults against Ukrainian positions, accusing some of feigning injuries. Those who went out were often injured or killed by Ukrainian fire. 'Just sticking your nose out could end your life," said Aleksandr Trofimov, a soldier in his early 40s who was injured by shrapnel after trying to salvage food in July. The men inside the factory were feuding over the remaining supplies. 'Where the f— did six half-liter bottles go?" one Russian asked in a radio exchange intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence. A subordinate responded: 'Yeah, even the water I left this morning, and asked them not to touch, has been drunk." At least one wounded fighter shot himself inside the factory, unable to handle the misery of it all, according to three soldiers who were there. At one point in September, one Russian soldier was complaining to another over the radio, saying there were only seven combat-ready people remaining and assailing the military command's empty promises to give the exhausted men a break. 'They'll keep throwing us forward until there's no one f—ing left," he said. The other man replied: 'Same story, different day." Simdyankin and Shabunko set out for the factory before dawn on Sept. 23, leading a group of four other men across a park that was mined and covered in deep holes from shelling. They advanced in groups of two several minutes apart, guided by Russian drones emitting a faint blue light overhead. Pain shot through Simdyankin's injured leg. He had a rifle slung across his shoulder, and his rucksack was stuffed with nearly 90 pounds of supplies. Once he made it to about 100 yards from the factory, he stopped to regain his breath, taking shelter behind a tree. In the moonlight, he saw Shabunko's lumbering silhouette. 'Hurry up!" he shouted. They covered the final 100 yards together, as fast as they could. They ran inside just as an airplane detonated a powerful glide bomb over the facility, showering them with bricks and mortar. Shabunko grabbed the radio and told his unit commander the two men had made it. The officer congratulated them. The four others in their group, he said, had not. Ivan Shabunko in a Ukrainian detention center in February. Inside, emaciated figures Simdyankin later described as 'moving skeletons" looked up at them. With their faces blackened by soot and dust, they cowered behind machine tools lining the walls that provided some shelter from the relentless bombardment. Shards of glass and bullet casings littered the floor. Bloodied bandages and syringes lay in a pile. Of more than 100 Russian troops who had set up positions inside the plant months earlier, Simdyankin and Shabunko were told, no more than 25 now remained alive, spread out across two buildings in the complex. One soldier, who was badly wounded and could only see through one eye, lay on a bed of dirty clothes with a gun pressed tightly against his chest. Three dead bodies were decomposing in the building, Simdyankin said. The new arrivals handed out rations of food and ammo—enough to keep the nine men in their section going for the next two days. That evening they helped prepare a meal of buckwheat, canned meat and rice. The men sat and ate silently, lacking the power or inclination to speak. In the morning they set about fortifying their position. They stacked cardboard boxes and even tin cans on top of the heavy machine equipment to provide some scant cover from the constant drone and artillery strikes. Time was almost out. Members of the Timur Special Forces Unit, a group of elite Ukrainian soldiers overseen by the country's military intelligence agency, were methodically working their way through the factory. That evening, in another section of the plant, a Russian commander approached the Ukrainians and negotiated terms of surrender for his men. The next day, another Ukrainian squad crept along the rubble around the warehouse where Simdyankin, Shabunko and the others were holding out, and launched a final assault. A fast-moving conflagration overwhelmed the Russians in the warehouse, Simdyankin said. He felt intense heat, and temporarily lost his sight. The Ukrainians had thrown antitank mines and multiple grenades into the building, seeking to flush the Russians out. 'Give yourselves up!" they shouted. The Russians fired back. The Ukrainians had the building under siege. 'This whole place is about to be destroyed," one of the Ukrainians says in footage filmed by a camera mounted to his helmet. 'We all want to live, just like you do." Slowly, nervously, the Russians emerged into the daylight. Some of the captured men's faces and hair were so burned that one Ukrainian soldier involved in the operation said 'they looked like they just had come out of an oven." The Russians were given water and cigarettes, but they kept pleading for food. 'They were starving us to death," one tells his captors in footage from the scene. Several hours after Simdyankin and Shabunko were led out of the area, Russia fired thermobaric 'Scorching Sun" rockets that engulfed the vast compound in fire. Among those incinerated in the towering blaze were several badly wounded Russian soldiers, according to those taken captive, as well as the corpses no one had been able to collect. A few days after his capture, Simdyankin was allowed to call his wife for the first time in weeks. 'Forgive me for going to war," he is shown telling her in a video Ukraine posted online, lowering his head to the table as tears streamed down his face, almost unrecognizable because it was so badly burned at the factory. A screenshot of a video Ukraine posted online showing an interview with Simdyankin, his face badly burned. Five months after that call, a very different Simdyankin walked into the visiting room of a prisoner-of-war camp in eastern Ukraine. The tall, athletic soccer player now sported an inmate's buzz-cut, and the burns on his face had healed, leaving behind a prominent scar. He had been treated for his injuries and had regained weight. He spent his days sewing and weaving baskets with other prisoners, and watching Ukrainian television reports about the war and talks to end it. His sister sent him the scores of Zenit soccer matches, relayed in typed messages delivered by the Red Cross. In an interview, she said she worried that he could be sent to fight again after he returns home. Reflecting on his monthlong ordeal in the Russian army, Simdyankin said the most terrifying part was seeing healthy young men, some of whom he called friends, die for no reason. He lamented getting foolishly swept up in 'a pointless war." All he wanted, he said, was to be included in a prisoner swap that would bring him home, so that he could pick up where he left off in St. Petersburg, starting a family and building a normal life. 'I'm really angry at myself. I made a stupid mistake," he said. 'If I could, I would go back in time and give all that money back." Simdyankin is one of more than 400 Russians at the POW camp where he is being held. Write to Matthew Luxmoore at

Ksenia Samotiy: Rebel leader or sexual fantasy in a gold bikini? What Star Wars tells us about women being sidelined in their own story

Irish Independent

03-06-2025

Entertainment
Irish Independent

Ksenia Samotiy: Rebel leader or sexual fantasy in a gold bikini? What Star Wars tells us about women being sidelined in their own story

Pop culture has long treated female interest in 'Star Wars' as either accidental or secondary – and the films themselves don't always help 'Things I never thought would happen No. 42: Ksenia sending me Star Wars-related memes' texted my boyfriend a couple of days ago, as he bravely battled through the backlog of Instagram reels I'd sent him. He's not wrong. Until a few days ago, the likelihood of me understanding a Star Wars meme was lower than the chance of something sensible coming out of Donald Trump's mouth. What's equally remarkable is how I finally saw the light (saber). It's not that I didn't know anything about Star Wars, more that I'd never watched the source material. I mostly knew of it from other things, such as the fact that for Ross from Friends, his ultimate sexual fantasy was Leia in a golden bikini. Most of all, though, I knew about Star Wars from my religious dedication to The Big Bang Theory. Not that I'm comparing myself with Penny, of course, but like her (at least in the earlier seasons), I have expressed bemusement when nerdy guys try to indoctrinate me about Star-related franchises, confident that I most definitely have better things to do with my time.

Ksenia Samotiy: I'm late to the 'Star Wars' party but it makes all the difference when a woman shows you the ways of the Force

Irish Independent

03-06-2025

Entertainment
Irish Independent

Ksenia Samotiy: I'm late to the 'Star Wars' party but it makes all the difference when a woman shows you the ways of the Force

Model found dumped on road with broken spine was 'tortured by Russians'

Daily Mirror

12-05-2025

Daily Mirror

Model found dumped on road with broken spine was 'tortured by Russians'

A 20-year-old OnlyFans model from Ukraine was found on the roadside in Dubai after suffering horrific injuries and it was initially thought she had attended a notorious "Porta Potty" event An OnlyFans model who was feared to have been kidnapped into sexual slavery and later found badly injured had been 'tortured by Russians'. The 20-year-old from Ukraine was discovered on a roadside in Dubai with a broken spine and limbs. She had been in a coma after she was found close to death having 'fallen from a height'. Initial reports alleged the model had attended a so-called Porta Potty event at which female social influencers and models can be paid huge sums to be subjected to extreme and degrading abuse. ‌ ‌ But now a source close to the Ukrainian model has insisted that she was abused by unidentified Russians in the UAE - and not local citizens - before she was discovered in March. The source also denied multiple reports that the model had left Dubai and was convalescing in Ukraine. 'We are in Dubai,' said the source. 'And it was Russian citizens who tortured (the model). UAE citizens have nothing to do with it. That's all I can say for now.' The Onlyfans model is 'getting better' but remains under treatment for her horrific ordeal. 'She is getting better, thank you,' said the source, who said they 'hoped' local police were investigating the 'Russians' who 'tortured' her, and also condemned 'false' reporting about her case. Dubai police are known to be investigating the woman's horror ordeal, and a Ukrainian criminal case was opened into 'human trafficking'. The new account comes after multiple Ukrainian and Russian reports said she had been abused after attending a party in Dubai. Ukrainian news outlet 24TV said another model who had 'managed to escape from the fateful party' claimed it was a 'trap'. 'Before the party and the trip to the villa, women were forced to sign a contract, according to the terms of which they had to simply accompany wealthy men,' stated the report. 'However, in reality, women were raped, beaten and mistreated.' ‌ The source, named as Ksenia, said: 'Loud screams were constantly heard from closed rooms.' A report by Obozrevatel - another Ukrainian news outlet - cited another Ukrainian OnlyFans model, Dubai-based Alyona Omovich, 29, saying: 'Let's call things by their name. 'You can tell from her appearance that she was involved in something horrific. And that horror, apparently, is what led to her being so badly broken.' She revealed a circuit of degrading 'elite parties' when foreign models and influencers are 'promised large sums —tens of thousands of dollars — in exchange for actions that border on violence, humiliation, and even physical mutilation'. Before vanishing, the model had earlier participated in an event in Dubai in support of a Russian sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky, jailed in his own country. Kagarlitsky had described a Ukrainian October 2022 explosion on the £3 billion Crimean Bridge as understandable 'from a military point of view' and was imprisoned for five years for 'justifying terrorism'. Kagarlitsky's daughter Ksenia said that the woman was 'conscious' and that 'she will be able to walk' despite the injuries she sustained. 'This is all very good news. But the details will come later, when she leaves the country,' she stated, and added that the attack had been 'psychologically very difficult'.