WATCH Russian troops save injured Ukrainian soldier

Russian service members have rescued an injured Ukrainian soldier who got stuck in no-man’s-land in Donbass, according to a new video circulating on social media.

A two-minute clip, which was originally posted by Russian war correspondent Dmitry Zimenkin on Sunday, shows an incident that took place near the frontline village of Kleshcheevka, about 10 km south-west of the Donbass city of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut), which was captured by Russian troops this spring after months of bitter fighting.

The video shows several Russian soldiers operating in a lightly wooded area; one service member orders a Ukrainian combatant lying a dozen meters away to stand up and raise his hands. “You move, I’ll shoot you,” a Russian soldier says as he comes closer.

The Russian goes on to ask: “How many people are here? Two? How far away? Twenty meters? Will they shoot?” The Ukrainian soldier’s answers are inaudible. The Russian soldier then orders his Ukrainian counterpart to “crawl to them on your own.” “If you don’t, it will be easier just to whack you,” he adds.

However, when the Ukrainian soldier is unable to obey the order, the Russian soldier filming the clip stands up and cautiously approaches his foe, who has an apparent leg wound, and tells him to grab the barrel of his gun to be evacuated. “It really hurts,” the Ukrainian says.

However, as the Ukrainian is unable to grip the rifle firmly, the Russian soldier drags his captive, who is crying in pain, by the hands out of the danger zone; another soldier later assists him.

In a post attached to the video, Zimenkin promised to share what happened next, adding that the Ukrainian soldier would later be interrogated.

The Russian Defense Ministry regularly issues reports on Ukrainian service members taken prisoner and shares interviews with them; it says many surrender voluntarily. In late September, TASS quoted an unnamed Russian official as saying that some 10,000 Ukrainian servicemen had surrendered to Moscow’s troops since mid-summer, using a special radio frequency to signal to opposing Russian units that they didn’t want to fight anymore.