Russia is furious over reports of drone operators being sent to die in the infantry

The clip of the specialists — Dmitri “Goodwin” Lysakovsky and Sergey “Ernest” Gritsai — was published posthumously, appearing on the Telegram channel “North Wind” on Friday.

The footage has since circulated widely on Russian Telegram channels, which identified 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 team after they fell out with him and filtering their team members into infantry platoons.

They also alleged that Puzyk facilitated drug trafficking in his unit and falsely reported battlefield gains under his command.

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

“Lying is an absolute norm,” Lysakovski said, according to a translation by Estonian analyst WarTranslated.

“I’m recording this in case I don’t return from the assault, and only then will this message carry any weight,” Lysakovski added.

He later said in another video that he was about to leave to “robber” with his infantry unit and asked the Russian people not to join the war.

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

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

Previous reports in Russian media suggest that Lysakovski was well-known even before the war in Ukraine, writing that he was a lawyer and financier fighting for the Donetsk People’s Republic, a separatist faction in Ukraine, as early as 2014.

He became head of the DPR’s aerial reconnaissance unit by 2016, according to a Kommersant report that year, which said he was accused of corporate raiding 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 said they obeyed their commander’s orders because they had taken an “oath to the Motherland”.

The Russian reaction and an official response

The images sparked protests over the weekend among Russian military bloggers, many of whom independently reported that the two men had been killed in combat.

Part of the backlash stems from assessments by experts on the ground that Lysakovsky and Gritsai were two of the best front-line drone operators.

They posted several screenshots of Russian text messages in which Lysakovski asked for help transferring out of his unit.

“No supplies, no maps, no minefield plans. Nothing,” Lysakovski wrote in a Sept. 10 message.

Dozens of Russian commentators criticized the circumstances of the deaths, with some calling for a ban on the assignment of specialists such as snipers or drone operators to infantry attacks.

“The very act of repurposing an effective UAV reconnaissance crew into assault infantry under current conditions is, to put it mildly, sabotage,” wrote pro-Kremlin Russian journalist Alexander Kots.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the deaths of Gritsei and Lysakovski on Sunday, writing that it would investigate their deaths.

The investigation would be conducted under the “personal control” of Viktor Goremykin, the deputy defense minister, and Valery Gerasimov, the head of Russia’s armed forces, the ministry said in its statement.

Some of the furore has died down since the announcement. However, several prominent bloggers have continued to express concern over what they say is a growing emergence of Russian commanders wasting valuable specialists on frontal attacks.

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

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

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

Pokrovsk, the city near which Lysakovski and Gritsai were deployed, was a focal point and source of much bloodshed on Ukraine’s eastern front.

Russian troops have made a strong push to take over the logistics hub in recent months, closing in on the outskirts of the city after weeks of slow progress.