CNN, Kyiv — Russian soldiers call the practice a sacrifice to Baba Yaga, a fearsome witch from Slavic folklore who feasts on her victims.
A Russian serviceman is seen on video being tied up to a tree and abandoned to his fate – possibly death – at the hands of one of Ukraine’s large attack drones.
Why this is happening is clear from a radio intercept about a similar incident, shared with CNN, in which a Russian commander can clearly be heard ordering a subordinate be tied up in this way as punishment for desertion.
The instruction is given twice: “Hide him somewhere (while the fighting is ongoing) then take him out and tie him to a tree … in the next half hour.”
A Ukrainian drone battalion commander, says he has observed it happen twice and heard it happening on radio intercepts many more times.
“A sickening array of battlefield mistreatments”
“Any large Ukrainian drone they call Baba Yaga. It spreads terrible panic in these damaged people. For them, it’s some kind of scary myth that flies in and kills everyone,” the commander, who goes by the callsign Munin, told CNN.
The practice is one of a sickening array of battlefield mistreatments recorded on video either by Ukrainian surveillance drones or Russian servicemen and then circulated on social media.
As Moscow’s forces make slow but seemingly inexorable progress inside Ukraine, the videos paint a grim picture of the realities of life inside Putin’s army – a service which tens of thousands of Russian men are estimated to have fled since the start of the full-scale invasion in early 2022.
In the video, apparently filmed last winter, the man is shown in close-up, tied to a tree …
