Footage circulating from the battlefield in Ukraine shows a Russian mercenary, stripped naked, holding up a handwritten sign reading “Please help me!” as a Ukrainian drone hovers above him.
The video, reported by Ukrainian outlet Censor and shared by a Ukrainian military Telegram account on Thursday, shows the man kneeling in grass in what appears to be an attempt to surrender. The drone zooms in to read the sign before moving on through the open, bush-dotted terrain.
Why the man was naked is not explained in the footage or in Ukrainian reporting on it. It is not clear when or precisely where the video was recorded, and the man has not been identified. Ukrainian sources speculate he may be one of the foreign mercenaries Russia has recruited into its ranks.
A pattern of foreign recruits used as cannon fodder
Since the start of its full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia has recruited an estimated 50,000 fighters from more than 150 countries and territories, leaning increasingly on recruits from poorer nations to fill out its forces. Ukrainian officials and reporting describe many of these men being sent into combat with little training, sometimes on what are described as “meat assault” missions.
On Monday, Ukrainian intelligence identified a Botswanan national, Pako Namogang, 25, who had been recruited through WhatsApp and killed in Russia’s Luhansk region after only brief training, according to Censor.
In July, Ukrainian outlet UA News reported that two Cameroonian citizens were killed in Russian assaults within weeks of signing their contracts. Ngulure Ibrahim Nkite, 23, arrived in Russia in February, began service as a rifleman in April, and was killed weeks later in occupied Donetsk in May. Tapingjeu Namekong Loik, 25, signed his contract in March and was killed the following month in the Zaporizhzhia region.
In August, UA News reported that Jeric Jumadil Undol, 37, a Filipino national, was killed in Donetsk in May, just weeks after signing his military contract.
The naked mercenary’s fate after the drone passed him by is not known.
