The Ukrainian Armed Forces Captured A Mercenary With A Belarusian Passport

He was taken prisoner right near Liman.

The project “I Want to Live” spoke with servicemen from Russia’s 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies, who were taken prisoner by Ukraine during fighting in that area. Among them is the Belarusian Yuri Baran.

He decided to sign a contract with the Russian army because there was no work at the factory where he had been employed. Baran does not specify which factory this was.

When recalling conditions on the front lines, the Belarusian man first mentions supply disruptions. According to him, there was a severe heat wave in the summer, and there was a catastrophic shortage of water.

Baran was taken prisoner just outside Lyman. He said his group of five was tasked with making their way into the city and waiting there for another group. To minimize the risk, they decided to move one at a time. The Belarusian went first.

“I entered the city of Liman and was already sitting there, waiting for the main group. The group never reached me. They all stayed in the forest. They all died,” Baran recalls.

He didn’t find out right away that his fellow occupiers had been killed and continued to wait for them in the city for some time. Meanwhile, the area where he was located came under fire from drones, artillery, and mortars fired from the Ukrainian side.

Baran decided to leave the dangerous area, crossed the railroad tracks, and found another hiding place in the city. Later, while moving between hideouts, he ran into Ukrainian soldiers. They told him to surrender if he wanted to live, and, as Baran admits, the choice was obvious.

According to him, the Ukrainian soldiers treated him humanely: they fed him, and even provided cigarettes to those who smoked.

The Belarusian concludes his story by reflecting on the extent to which Russian soldiers actually understand where they are being sent and why.

“I’m going there, I don’t know where. That’s apparently how most [Russian] soldiers are going,” he notes.

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