A disturbing leaked video has exposed how Russian troops are reportedly using their own soldiers as bait for Ukrainian drone strikes, according to Militarny on February 25.
The footage shows a captured Russian soldier, Ivan Tretyakov, tied to a tree with wire around his neck, while fellow Russian troops interrogate him.
Tretyakov, a 22-year-old from Kamensk-Uralsky in Russia’s Sverdlovsk region, admitted he was terrified of running into Ukrainian drone attacks and even considered self-inflicted injury to avoid battle.
“I was scared to run under the ‘bird’ [a drone loaded with explosives], so I ran back and took cover,” he confessed.
When another soldier offered to shoot him in the leg so he could escape the frontline, Tretyakov refused—only to be accidentally shot anyway when another soldier attempted to injure himself.
As the interrogation unfolded, one of the Russian soldiers abruptly cut the conversation short, warning, “Oh, it’s coming. They’re about to greet us.”
Tretyakov immediately looked up in terror.
Another soldier added, “When it gets here, it’ll drop [explosives] immediately.” Moments later, the video ended—just as a Ukrainian drone strike was seemingly about to hit.
What makes the footage even more disturbing is that despite knowing an incoming drone was imminent, Russian troops made no attempt to free Tretyakov or shield him from the attack. This strongly suggests that he was intentionally left as bait to lure Ukrainian drones.
This brutal tactic is not new.
In December, Ukrainian special forces in Russia’s Kursk region discovered a notebook belonging to a dead North Korean fighter, Kyong Hong Jong, containing instructions on how to lure enemy drones by using a fellow soldier as bait.
Reports have also surfaced that North Korean troops in Russia are so afraid of being captured that they use grenades to take their own lives rather than surrender.
