Russia furious over reports of drone operators sent to die as infantry

The clip of the specialists — Dmitry “Goodwin” Lysakovsky and Sergei “Ernest” Gritsai — was published posthumously and appeared on the Telegram channel “North Wind” on Friday.

The footage has since circulated widely on Russian Telegram channels, identifying the soldiers as members of the 87th Rifle Regiment fighting near Pokrovsk in Donetsk.

Lysakovsky and Gritsai accused their new commander, Igor Puzyk, of disbanding their drone unit after they had a falling out with him and of distributing their team members among infantry platoons.

They further alleged that Puzyk had facilitated drug trafficking in his unit and falsely reported battlefield profits under his command.

Lysakovsky recorded a separate video message in which he severely criticized Puzyk and claimed that the commander was influenced by a soldier with ties to Ukrainian intelligence.

“Lies are the absolute norm,” Lysakovsky said, as translated by Estonian analyst WarTranslated.

“I am recording this in case I do not return from the attack, and only then will this message have meaning,” Lysakovsky added.

Later, in another video, he said he was about to leave with his infantry unit and called on Russian men not to join the war.

“Your job is to die here so that the regimental commander, who reports to the higher echelons, looks good,” he said. “These are his personal serfs.”

These two videos featuring him were also published by “North Wind” on Friday.

Previous reports in Russian media indicate that Lysakovski was known in Ukraine before the war. He wrote that he was a lawyer and financier who fought for the Donetsk People’s Republic, a separatist faction in Ukraine, as early as 2014.

In 2016, he became head of the DPR’s aerial reconnaissance unit, Kommersant reported in a report from the same year. According to the report, he was accused of a robbery in Moscow.

As for Gritsai, Russian military bloggers who claimed to know him personally reported that he was a career officer.

In their joint video complaint, the two men say they obeyed their commander’s orders because they took an “oath to the motherland.”

Russian counter-reaction and an official response

The images sparked outrage among Russian military bloggers over the weekend, with many independently reporting that the two men had been killed in battle.

Some of the negative reactions stem from the assessment of experts on the ground, who felt that Lysakovsky and Gritsai were among the best drone operators at the front.

Several people posted screenshots of Russian text messages in which Lysakovsky asked for help with the transfer from his unit.

“There are no supplies, no maps, no plans of minefields. Nothing,” Lysakovsky wrote in a message dated September 10.

Dozens of Russian commentators have criticized the circumstances of the casualties, with some advocating a ban on the use of specialists, such as snipers or drone operators, in infantry attacks.

“The fact that an effective reconnaissance crew of an unmanned aerial vehicle is being converted into assault infantry under the current conditions is, to put it mildly, sabotage,” wrote Russian pro-Kremlin journalist Alexander Kots.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the deaths of Gritsei and Lysakovsky on Sunday and said it would investigate their deaths.

The investigation would be conducted under the “personal leadership” of Viktor Goremykin, a deputy defense minister, and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian armed forces, the ministry said in a statement.

Some of the outcry has died down since the announcement. However, several prominent bloggers have continued to express concern about what they call an increasing number of Russian commanders wasting valuable specialists on frontal assaults.

Political commentator Svyatoslav Golikov wrote that the problem in the army had become “systematic” due to the shortage of manpower on the battlefield.

“This particular issue will be resolved. But only because it caused a stir,” wrote the Telegram channel Two Majors.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to Business Insider outside regular business hours.

Pokrovsk, the city where Lysakovsky and Gritsai were located, was a flashpoint and source of much bloodshed on Ukraine’s eastern front.

Russian troops have been working hard to capture the logistical hub in recent months, approaching the outskirts of the city after weeks of slow advance.