A Russian defector blew up his guard post before fleeing to Ukraine (Picture: east2west)
A Russian soldier blew up his assault unit’s base and killed his commander before defecting to Ukraine, Kyiv reports.
The defector, an FPV drone pilot known by his call sign ‘Silver’, had been secretly working with Ukraine for months with the assistance of Russian Freedom League, an anti-Putin partisan group.
Footage taken moments before he left shows Silver tossing a grenade into a ventilation hole while his commander and fellow officers slept, before disappearing across the frontlines in the ensuing confusion.
He reportedly opted to side with Ukraine because of Russia’s ‘systematic war crimes, including extrajudicial executions, beatings and extortion’.
Ukrainian defector ‘Silver’ said he did not wish to fight for Putin’s Russia (Picture: East2west News)
Before he defected, Ukraine said Silver had helped gather ‘valuable intelligence on the location, number and intentions of the enemy in a particular frontline area’.
Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv, Silver said:m ‘There were about 15 people in the basement.
‘In this room, there was a pipe right above the bed where the commander was sleeping.
‘It went out into the street next to the entrance, and we decided to throw a grenade or two into this pipe so that they would explode next to them.
‘I threw the grenade, bang.
‘At the other end, they shout in pain….’
From his grenade attack, his commander and several senior officers of the ‘Storm’ unit were seriously injured, according to the Ukrainians.
Silver dropped a grenade down a ventilation shaft as he made his escape (Picture: legionoffreedom/ East2west News)
During his retreat, Silver – a paramedic by training from the Kemerovo region of Siberia – mined his path and went out along the agreed route.
As he ran to the frontlines for extraction, Silver said he remained fearful that he had been double-crossed, and that nobody would be there to meet him.
But he was instead greeted by Ukrainians, who offered him tea and biscuits.
He added: ‘I doubted to the end that anyone would really meet me, fearing I’d be cheated, but I was not.’
Silver, who defected in the winter has only just had his story revealed, is now undergoing a basic training course as a Legion recruit.
I wanted to serve in the army. I gave an oath to protect my motherland,’ he said.
‘My motherland is there [in Russia] and no one attacked it. I didn’t want to serve for Russia during the war and didn’t want to die for Putin.’
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