CNNW The July 5, 2024
"when they put me in prison, i heard they were recruiting. serve six months and they pardon you," he tells me. so he signed up with storm z, a unit made up of convicts attached to the russian defense ministry. after only two weeks of basic training, he was shipped off to the frontlines near bakhmut. [ gunfire ] after days of intense shelling, with only rainwater and no food, he heard ukrainian troops outside his foxhole. he assumed they would execute him. "i thought that was the end," he recalls. "i switched my rifle to single shot mode and thought, i'll shoot myself, but i couldn't....