From captivity - with five captured Russians: story of aerial reconnaissance man from 82nd SAAB Bardak
At the beginning of the Kursk offensive in August 2024, a group of four aerial reconnaissance men from the 82nd Separate Air Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were captured when they unexpectedly reached an enemy position. However, the Russians soon began to realize that they themselves were surrounded. That’s when the senior pilot, code-named Bardak, convinced the enemy to surrender and released his group from captivity, bringing out five more Russians.
- This is the Kursk operation as part of the 82nd Air Assault Brigade, which was tasked with making a breakthrough. I, along with my crew, was moving in the rear position, following the guys from the assault companies to provide reconnaissance, situational awareness on the battlefield, and live streams for our command," says aerial reconnaissance officer Bardak of the 82nd Separate Air Assault Brigade.
- How did you react when you found out that you would be entering the Kursk region? Why are you needed here? How do you explain this to yourself?
- This operation was our chance to do something differently from the way things had been going before. There were five of us together with the driver, but the driver was not with us at the time because he and the vehicle were on a rear position. At that time, there were no prepared positions, because it was offensive, and moreover, the breakthrough was already quite deep at that moment.
- Was it August 2024?
- Yes.
- Is this the beginning?
-Yes, the very beginning. From the moment of the actual breakthrough, it was maybe the 5th or 6th day. This is when the border was broken through, and then the units that went deeper were involved, and our unit was one of those. The idea, as far as I understand, was to break through, take positions, and then... It was probably not that far from the border, maybe 10-15 to 20 kilometers away.
"We were riding in a combat vehicle, which had to be left behind after reaching a certain number of kilometers before our destination. Its task was to come in case something went drastically wrong, and we needed to be picked up. It was this vehicle that would come, not a pickup truck because using a pickup could have been too dangerous. And this is a key point about that combat vehicle, as it's precisely the reason why we were wandering through that forest for a while. We started digging in and setting up the equipment. Everything had to be done quickly because the fighting was already underway. Our units had advanced, and we needed to monitor them so that the command could see and understand everything to make decisions. We placed antennas in the trees. We were struggling with the internet because, as everyone knows, Starlink in the Kursk region was working very poorly, and nothing was helping at all. That's why this device (points to the satellite box) came in handy. Some additional satellite internet equipment. But we set up, got to work, and started sending images to the headquarters. And basically, two days passed like that. For two days, we systematically worked on communications and continued fortifying our positions. We tried to be cautious, using camouflage."
We were worried that someone might enter our position. Because I had operational information that no enemy units were spotted in the area. But because friendly units, not ours, were fighting in nearby settlements, it became necessary to come up with options, if something went wrong, where we could drive up, where we could stop the combat vehicle, where we could stop it so that it was not in the middle of the field. And this was a problem because in the Kursk region, the forest where there is a ravine, the terrain is very unstable. So in the forest where we were, we started to recon, to see where we could stop. And after about two days, we went with a comrade in arms to look for a place. And because the forest itself was already a little bit damaged and there were a lot of fallen trees, it was very easy to take cover in it. That's why we found ourselves in a situation where we reached the tree stems at a distance of 10 meters. And I turned to my comrade-in-arms, and he, like in a movie, was frozen and pointing. I turned around, and they were already slowly getting up. They were sitting at their observation posts. Well, they were not there at all. They were coming up like that, and for some reason, I was sure that it was a friendly unit. Because I could not see their uniforms. I was somehow positive, optimistic. And they were nervous, trying to ask about the unit. I'm like, 'We're all friends, everything's fine.
- Did you answer them in Ukrainian or Russian?
- At first, in Ukrainian. Well, again, in my experience, when you come across some friendly positions, it's better to speak Ukrainian. And they don't react very well. Then they started to stand up to their full height. I saw that the uniform was not ours at all.
The entire story about "we'll shoot you now" and the story about "don't move, drop your weapons". Basically, nothing new. Nothing you can't imagine there. I don't know why, by the way, they didn't shoot me. Because nothing was in their way, really. I think they were not shot because they did not fully understand the situation they were in. And this played a very important role in the story later on. I mean, this story is about how a lot of things miraculously coincided, and it turned out like this.
- Do you remember your feelings at all?
- When you realize that you’ve met the enemy face-to-face like that, for the next 10-15 minutes, I had no idea what was happening to me, what I was doing, or even what I was saying. They told us to face the ground—so you lay down, hands out, and they thoroughly inspected me. They went through all my pockets, checked everything, took away our weapons, made sure we didn’t have any 'surprises,' so to speak. They took off our body armor, helmets— all these things. They started checking everything, and during that time, you just lie there, face down on the ground, not moving, because they’ve got a rifle pressed against your spine. I was completely disoriented, not knowing how to behave in that moment.
- Who are you? - Well, Ukrainian military, soldiers. - Who's in charge? - I am. - Where are your papers? - I don't carry papers on missions. - What are you doing here? - Well, we're fighting, so to speak. - And what exactly are you doing?
I just said that we were pilots, we were not storming anything here now. We're just some specialists doing our job, scouts. And he was like: "Where is your equipment? We just came here with a helmet - armor vest - assault rifle, we have nothing, no backpacks. - We have the equipment. Here it is. Interestingly, perhaps one of their first reactions was when they looked around and started asking questions. And it knocked me sideways a little bit and even brought me to my senses a little bit. "Where are the drugs?" I was like: "What drugs?" "Well, you're on drugs, you're crazy, you're some crazy Khokhols, right?" I was like, 'I don't have anything. I have a first aid kit with paracetamol at most. And I never understood whether he was upset about something.
They weren't too concerned about who we were or what we were doing there; they were more interested in what was going on around them. And later, after we had been with them for a while, I got the impression that they had no tactical or operational information about what was happening around them. They were brought there literally by some ZIL or KAMAZ truck, just dropped off, and the truck drove away.
- And what were they doing?
- Some kind of infantry. It was just a hodgepodge of people. There were some of the youngest people there - about twenty years old. The oldest were about fifty. They had some kind of radio station... But there was no such thing as if they were negotiating with some kind of headquarters or had a connection, as they say, with the big land. At that time, the towers were no longer working. Their senior officer first interrogated them, tried to understand what was going on. And what he was more interested in was what was around. And when I told him what was around...
- And what did you tell him? What's around?
- Yeah, well, he's like that: "How many of you are there?" I said: "What do you mean?" - "How many of you came here?"
I said that my unit was quite large, but I knew that many units were involved in this operation. That's why I couldn't say the exact number. It was a lot of equipment, a lot of personnel, a lot of forces and means. That actually heated up the situation a little bit. Perhaps the only thing that they were interested in was some options to get out of there. Because at first, they wanted to break through, let's say, with a fight. I don't know how they imagined it. I explained that it was a kind of a fancy idea because everything was being flown around by drones.
- How many people did you see there, how many were in front of you?
- The largest number I saw at one time was probably 11-12.
- How did it happen that they discussed their further actions in front of you?
- I think it was because they already had a certain degree of panic, and that's one thing, and secondly, it was felt that there were not all experienced soldiers in the unit.
- Were there two of you?
- There were four of us, and all four of us were captured.
The first thing they were interested in was water. Because we were leaving, and we had no backpacks, nothing. We were supposed to have some supplies with us. – Where’s your water? I realized that the only water I knew the location of was at my position. The only food I had left was at the position too. Because, as it turned out, these guys had been there for a week. They had been brought in and dropped off, and they had been sitting there for a week. They had no proper communication, nothing. They had already started, I don’t know, gnawing on something, apples or whatever they could find. And they simply didn’t have any water. They reacted quite aggressively to this.
- Did they tell anyone that they had POWs?
- Their chief of the radio station was talking to someone.
I have an opinion that it was some commander at the same level. Because from the conversations, I got the feeling that their command's stronghold had either fled somewhere or was destroyed, and they couldn't just get in touch. I simply explained to them that look, right here, nearby, do you hear shooting? That's a settlement, that's where the fighting is going on. This is coming from our side. This is coming there because there are some actions going on there. And these stories, of course, created a little bit of this atmosphere...
- Where was your equipment?
-They took everything, all our stuff. They just dragged everything to their side, and then they started dividing our water and food, which they later offered to us. There was an interesting moment when, imagine, there were 12 bottles, and only 5 reached their camp. More than half of them had already been in hidey hole somewhere. And when they sat down to divide it among themselves, because someone was thirsty, and to give us a little water, half a bottle, for four of us, after this division it turned out that two or three people were short - they were left without water, and we gave them our water.
- What kind of weapons did they have?
- Not all of them had weapons, or even personal armor. What they did have were AK-74 rifles. In other words, there was nothing like a hand-held grenade launcher or an AGS (automatic grenade launcher) that could have helped them put up any serious resistance.
I think they were basically just dropped there to be present. And they probably realized it themselves — that, in a sense, they were abandoned there. Without resources, without supplies, without communication, and in conditions where everything was shooting and exploding around them, they didn’t know where to go. Because we were sitting there, and it was already night. I was just lying on the ground, looking up at the sky. I heard a shell flying, for instance, and I knew that if you could hear it whistling, it meant everything was fine. I said, 'It's not for us.' Then I heard a Grad launch from somewhere in the distance — in a field not far from us. They were crouching there all the time. And you could tell they were people unaccustomed to combat
- Why did they leave you on the street?
- I think it's to make it easier to follow us.
- Was it possible to go to the toilet?
- Yes. At a certain point, they even seemed to feel uncomfortable.
There is such a thing as demonization of the enemy... And in the eyes of the enemy, any soldier of the Ukrainian army is some kind of animal, a monster. "Where are your drugs? Who did you kill there? What did you do? Where are your Nazi chevrons? Where are your tattoos?" And when this demonization collapses before their eyes, it somehow... I don't know. It just didn't work anymore. There was no response from me or from my comrades-in-arms. There was nothing to latch onto, no reason why we were so bad. We fight – we fight. They fight, and we fight. They are soldiers, and we are soldiers. And there, to put it bluntly, the desire to kill or mock quickly disappeared.
- When did you first think that you could influence something? And that you could control this situation?
- When all this started with large-scale movements, offensives, and columns—everything was moving, shooting, exploding. A real hell on earth. They were so confused about what was happening around them and so concerned for their safety that, even with information about Akhmat being in the neighboring forest, they didn’t go there. They were too afraid Akhmat would annihilate them. They had no idea what to do; they couldn’t tell where the enemy was and where their allies were.
They were even afraid to approach their own forces, to make any moves or maneuvers, because they had no communication with their command. I simply told them: "Do you hear that explosion over there? Do you hear it again? That’s our guys. That’s our guys. That’s our guys." And I realized it created a dilemma for them. I said: "You see, it’s like a matryoshka doll. You captured us, but in the end, you are the ones surrounded."
I said: "Let’s try to contact my people. Let’s arrange a field exchange. And somehow they may exchange us for you, and you will somehow get out, and we will somehow get out. At least try to make them think that resisting and dying heroically isn’t such a great idea."When we stopped working, when we stopped streaming, questions started to arise, and searches began. This is our job—it’s continuous. We can’t just disappear like that. I explained this to them. I told them: "We are operators. We came here because we were told everything was clear. Imagine the situation you’re in, some specialists just showed up here without any support—no scary guys in Bradleys, Marauders, or Strykers. We just came because it was quiet here." And that made them think. But the next morning, they really did go looking for us. That was the turning point. After that night, when the guys on duty tried to question us, some of them were already getting jittery. There were conversations like, "I have kids and a wife at home," "this is all nonsense," "I don’t want to die here."
The absurdity of the situation was clear to me almost from the very beginning, and it was teetering on the edge of being a cruel joke.
In fact, they had never seen their enemy in person. And then there were our drones, our dry rations. They were rummaging through our rations because, at the time, we had foreign, NATO-issued ones with us. They couldn’t make out what was written on the packaging. It was almost like a performance. "What’s this?" I explained: "This is this. These are proteins. This is an isotonic drink. This is a wet meal. It’s tasty." "Well, f**k, yeah, that’s definitely not ours." They tried it. "Tasty." We just sat and waited. It was just a regular group of soldiers. Naturally, there were some conversations. They tried to ask us questions—nothing military, just out of curiosity—later in the evening, when they were tying us up.
One of them, the guy who eventually took off his body armor, lay down next to me and said: "I want to live. How do I surrender?" His mood was, let’s say, of complete despair. It had been building up since the evening. So when I was sitting there, and he was tying me up, he said: "Funny, isn’t it? Today I’m tying you up, tomorrow you’ll be tying me up."
- Did it work out that way?
- Yes, it did.
- And you also tied him up?
- Yes, I did. I was the one who tied his hands up.
We were just then sitting down to breakfast. We untied ourselves again. And it started there. First, some shelling, some commotion, and then the shooting started. When the shooting started, they showed that they were ready to make some concessions, that they did not want to just die or be shot. They were ready to surrender.
- What was your internal reaction?
- After those initial 15 minutes of mental paralysis and intense nerves, I put on an almost poker face: we’re playing for all the stakes. "Do you want to surrender? Okay, let’s try it." For this to happen, everyone needed to stop shooting. So he started yelling at his men, and at some point, I also started shouting at them to cease fire. But first, I focused on reaching the group that was calling out to me. For about ten minutes, there were chaotic shouts and occasional single shots. But eventually, we managed to reach an understanding. They stopped shooting too. It was an interesting mind game. In the end, it seemed like they all thought a large unit was about to clear this forest.
Perhaps the key moment was that the group searching for us had wounded among them. The soldiers became primarily concerned about their own safety and started evacuating the wounded. I realized they might just leave. And at that moment, I faced a situation I couldn’t afford to let slip away. I stood up to my full height and started shouting to my men: "I’m Bardak! I’m wearing a brown fleece! I’m coming out, unarmed, without body armor. I’m one of ours! I was captured yesterday, spent the night here at their position, and now these Russian soldiers next to me have realized they’re surrounded. They’re ready to surrender."
In fact, it wasn't very interesting there, because they were calling the WIAs, they didn't even hear me very much. They were like: "Yeah, yeah, everything's fine."
- How far away were they?
- I think we were about 50-60 metres away. In the forest, it's quite a long distance, the forest is dense, and it was not very good to hear.
- Were your hands and feet tied?
- No, at that time, in fact, my hands were not even tied.
- Who helped to untie you?
- The ones standing guard. They were the ones who untied me.
It does sound strange, I get that. Maybe I’m missing some parts of the memory—in a good way—or the ability to convey the mood and absurdity that were so obvious in the moment.
I said: "Let me bring those who are ready to surrender to the road, I will go out with them so that you can see us clearly from the forest, and you can accept there." I understand that some kind of ritual was needed. A ritual that we all had to go through.
- How did you manage to establish contact with your friendlies?
- It actually took quite a while. Because... We made our way to the road, and it so happened that I was sort of leading this procession. I was the first to step out of the forest onto the road. I saw a pickup truck approaching. At that moment, I realized there was no one left nearby from their side. They were laying down their weapons, though not all at once and not everyone. When the contact began, some of them engaged in the fight, others froze in place, just sitting there. Eventually, a few ran away from the position. Not everyone came out to the road, either. Initially, six people followed me.
My three pilots came out, along with six Russian soldiers who wanted to surrender. That was an incredibly strange moment, by the way, because my pilots still didn’t fully understand what was happening. They were absolutely shocked.
This was later shown on a stream, and people at the headquarters were telling me how ridiculous it looked. There were three guys sitting on the road—my pilots, who for some reason decided that it was "safer" for them to sit like that. Six people were lying face down on the ground. And I was running around, seemingly explaining what to do with them. And we were waiting for the drone. For a long time.
At that moment, the drone only saw five bodies instead of six, because one of them had second thoughts and went back to his position. The drone arrived and captured this bizarre scene: five bodies lying on the ground, three kneeling, and one guy pacing around, gesturing at something. It was the most fucking crazy "crocodile" game of my life as I was trying to explain to the drone that these were prisoners, and these were mine—our guys.
I kept thinking about the position nearby, where their senior officer was. If he showed up and saw this casino, his reaction would probably be, "Are you f**king crazy? Kill them up now!" That phrase kept echoing in my head. I knew time was running out. This house of cards could collapse at any moment, and the whole situation could flip in an instant.
And I say to the guy who helped me, "I tie you up, you tie me up." I tell him, "Listen, you’ve still got our Internet equipment at your position. Let’s quickly set it up, because it seems like they don’t fully understand what’s going on with the drone. I’ll contact my guys, they’ll come, and we’ll wrap this up." And he agreed.
So, I’m just walking out of the forest with him, passing a guy standing there with an assault rifle. He’s staring at us, completely baffled, as if he has no idea what he’s seeing. The first guy escorts me out. Then the other one, holding the rifle, asks him, 'Are you seriously just surrendering like that?' He turns to him and says, 'Fk off, I want to live.' It's absurd."**
- Did you eventually get through to your soldiers?
- The connection speed was bad. And finally, a drone with a radio station arrived. Our drone. With our radio. It dropped it nearby, a little out in the field. I ran for that radio station like a rugby player.
As soon as I grabbed it, I realized we were already on the stream. Right away, I heard the battalion commander's voice. I gave him a brief report: "We were captured. There are five Russians here. They’re ready to surrender. They understand they’re surrounded." He responded: "Got it. Move to this location. You’ll be picked up there."
Our battalion commander has a great sense of humor. He never misses a chance to remind me where I’m from. So, the whole procession starts moving because, apparently, everything is ready. I was told where to go, and we began moving. Then I’m like, ‘Wait… Give me the internet!’ It was still set up. So I head back, pack everything up into this wooden case, and try to catch up with the convoy. As I was hurrying along, I heard over the radio: ‘What the hell? You've got some other f**ker who snailed on there. And I replied, ‘That’s me, I was just getting the internet!’ The commander immediately quips, ‘Yeah, this isn't like strolling down Lanzheron here.’"
The four of us sit in a pickup truck with the driver, and five Russians sit in the back. We tied them up and drive off.
- What happens to them next? Are they waiting for an exchange somewhere?
- They were very worried because there is a certain demonization of the enemy. They probably thought that we were going to leave and that we were going to shoot them down. I said: "No, everything will be fine". And there was this moment when we arrived, and the battalion commander himself and several officers came up. And the battalion commander gave a rather short speech about how you made the right choice to surrender, and everything would be fine. And really, they were just given a place, given water, given a smoke break, given something to eat, and they waited until they were already there.
- Why and what is this story about with you? Is that what it is about for you?
- It's about crazy luck. And nothing else. I felt what really happened when I was already driving in the pickup truck. And I was breathing so very deeply. I had a lot of adrenaline. Because before that, it seemed to be more or less calm. Because this stage of acceptance that I'm in a hole from which, in principle, I don't know if I'll ever get out. And somehow it seemed to work out. And then... hoo-hoo-hoo!
- Why the call sign Bardak? How did you end up in the war?
- Why Bardak? Well, on one hand, it sounds pretty funny. On the other hand, my friends thought I looked like a bard. I used to play the guitar for them, tell stories, and share all sorts of tales. Then the war came. I went to war. Now I’m a bard with an AK.
(pulls out a penguin from his backpack)
- Life... Anyway, I decided to change my call sign after everything that happened.
- Were you mobilized under the draft?
- Yes, I was mobilized. I met the guys I had been waiting for a long time to join. It was right before the Zaporizhzhia counteroffensive. At that moment, it felt like we were so close—just a little bit more, just a little bit more."
- A dash for victory?
- Yes, it was naive. Now I understand just how naive. There's a phrase that sums it up for me. I once told it to my friends: ‘I don’t want to wake up in another country.’ I was born in this country, I grew up in this country, I became a man in this country. I became who I am here. And now, it feels like all of that is wrong, like it has to be changed. But I’m against that. I want Ukraine to stay Ukraine. I want to do what it takes to achieve victory.
- Oh, the flag. Here it is. It’s fine. In fact, it’s even on this...
- Where was it?
- It was... in a hidden pocket, in my pants. They just didn’t find it."
- Why do you carry it with you?
- To remember. In order not to forget it.
Life takes out his guitar and plays...
