Russian military, returning from captivity, live less than a year: named the reason

The journalists found that the former captives often did not even get home - they were immediately sent back to the front, writes "Plaid". One of these prisoners, a native of Makeevka, Donetsk region, 30-year-old Vadim Vukolov, went from a colony in the Rostov region, where he served as the seventh on account. He was captured in January 2023 - one month after he crossed the Ukrainian border within the Wagner PEC. He spent three months in captivity, even interview Ukrainian journalists.

In April 2023 he was exchanged, after 35 days he died under Bakhmut. His brother, who was in prison at the time, learned that Vukolov was captured from the rollers on YouTube, and that he was sent to the front - when the salary began to arrive again. Among those whom Russia returned from captivity and then sent to the war, they were mercenaries from the Wagner PEC, personnel military, and mobilized from 49 Russian regions and three occupied regions of Ukraine. A total of 133 people.

Journalists noted that residents of Donetsk and Luhansk regions died on the front after returning from captivity most often - such 44 people. For comparison, the maximum number of those killed and disappeared from the Russian regions came to the Perm Territory - five people. In others - from one to four. More than half of the list - 71 people - did not live a year after returning from captivity.

So, 42-year-old Vladimir Vlasenko was exchanged in March 2023, and at the end of April, relatives buried him in the Sverdlovsk region. 24-year-old Danilo Sotnikov returned from captivity in May 2025 and disappeared on the same month. The resident of Lenoblast Alexei Utkin came under exchange in February 2025, and two months later he died. For more than a year, 46 people who visited captivity were able to stay at the front, and for over two years - only 15 servicemen.

The captives of the military of the Russian Federation said that the Russians who returned from captivity were "zero". "There were two people from my mouth who were captured, they were exchanged, they returned to the part, and they were brought back to Bogdanivka to continue to participate in the fighting. When we stood in order, the commander of the company with the call sign" Black "came to one of them If the grenades ended.

What a percentage from the list of those who returned from captivity, dies at the hands of their own commanders and companions is unknown. One of the contractors of the Russian Federation, who managed to talk to journalists, reported that regardless of office, title and term of stay in service, those who returned from captivity, almost immediately after the exchange was returned to positions.

"At the same time, they are taken under control so that they are not captured again or any information is drawn," the interlocutor said. He says that all the former captives in the Russian army are considered unreliable. In this case, the return of prisoners to the front is a violation of international law. They are directly forbidden by the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners.

The rules of international law provide that upon return from captivity, all servicemen should receive a vacation, undergo mandatory rehabilitation, and the wounded - receive treatment. In practice, instead, as the lawyers of the project "go through the forest" say, exchanged military are placed in closed military units where they are interrogated by the FSB. They are returned to the front after interrogations. This was also confirmed by the Russians in an interview with Ukrainian journalists.

We will remind, in the time ravine, the soldiers of 24 separate mechanized brigade named after King Danylo were captured by paratroopers of the 98th Division of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. It was previously considered "elite", but now in its benches - people without proper preparation, with a criminal past, which is released from the colonies and thrown on the storms. And on July 4, a new exchange of prisoners between Ukraine and the Russian Federation took place.