CaliToday (06/11/2025): Ukrainian officials report a systematic strategy of deploying vulnerable recruits, including those with severe intellectual disabilities, to overwhelm front lines regardless of the human cost.
He lies in a muddy ditch, stripped of his uniform and too weak to stand. His ribs protrude beneath the chain of his dog tags, the only trace of the soldier he once was. He murmurs incoherently, clearly too mentally incapacitated to communicate or move.
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| Artyom Radaev was sent to the front despite being disabled since childhood – and was then purportedly tied to a tree for refusing to fight |
This man, seen in a video obtained by The Telegraph, is allegedly one of several mentally disabled men sent to the front line by Russia.
Ukrainian officials and military sources say it is a deliberate strategy, one that reflects Moscow’s growing reliance on its most vulnerable citizens and its willingness to deploy a seemingly limitless supply of manpower to make gains, regardless of the staggering human cost.
Sources within Ukraine's military have shared research with The Telegraph detailing five specific cases that they say expose how Russia is willing to send soldiers who are severely disabled or suffering from debilitating diseases into active combat.
“Russia will never run out of people,” said "Anna," a member of Ukraine’s defence forces with close ties to the security services. Her name has been changed for security concerns.
“This means if sacrificing one man per 10 metres advances them and puts pressure on us, [they will do it]; it is an effective tactic in a society where there is no price to pay for sacrificing the poor,” she added.
A "Systematic" Pattern
The video of the incapacitated man is not a lone case, but part of a "troubling pattern," according to Dmytro Zhmailo, a military-political expert and executive director of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre (USCC).
“Such cases are not isolated and are quite systematic,” Mr. Zhmailo told The Telegraph. “Due to the need for manpower, against the backdrop of high losses in the army, Russia is forced to recruit citizens regardless of their health or physical disabilities.”
This desperate recruitment drive allegedly targets prisoners with chronic diseases and civilians who are pressured into service.
“This includes both prisoners... who have disability groups due to chronic diseases, and Russian civilians who, despite having health problems, agree to sign a contract... often under pressure,” Zhmailo said.
From Psychiatric Care to the Front Line
A Ukrainian commander, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that senior officials were aware of at least five such cases, including men with severe intellectual disabilities.
Semyon Karmanov, 27, was one of them. Diagnosed in childhood with an “intellectual disability with significant behavioural disorders," Karmanov was unable to read or write. Despite this, a prison medical commission classified him as “Category A” — fully fit for military service. He was flown from prison to a training camp in occupied Luhansk and issued a military ID listing him as a “driver,” even though his mother confirmed he could not drive. He was killed on the front line this autumn after suffering a head wound.
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| Semyon Karmanov was diagnosed with an intellectual disability as a child |
Alexey Vachrushev, 22, spent much of his life under psychiatric care and was educated at a specialized school for children with developmental disabilities. A medical certificate had declared him unfit for service. Earlier this year, police allegedly pressured him into signing a military contract. After attempting to flee his post, Vachrushev was sent into front-line combat. His current whereabouts are unknown.
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| Alexey Vachrushev spent much of his life under psychiatric care before being sent to war |
Artyom Radaev, 22, had been disabled since childhood. He was nonetheless deployed to the front by Russia's 4th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade. Days later, he disappeared near Horlivka. His mother, Galina, later recognized him in a photograph showing Russian soldiers tied to trees as a brutal punishment for refusing to fight. She has received no information about his fate.
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| Artyom Radaev |
Volkov Oleg Vladimirovich, 23, was also diagnosed with a psychiatric disability as a child. He was reportedly forced to sign a military contract after being caught stealing a crate of wine. On his first day in Ukraine, he panicked and hid in an electrical transformer cabin, where he was captured. His whereabouts are also unknown.
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| The whereabouts of Volkov Oleg Vladimirovich remain unknown |
Ukrainian officials say numerous other videos circulating on social media show captured Russian soldiers who are visibly unable to communicate or understand where they are further evidence of Moscow’s reliance on the unfit and unwilling.
‘You Drive Over Corpses – There’s No Other Way’
This strategy of deploying "disposable" soldiers is reportedly leading to catastrophic losses.
A Russian soldier fighting near Chasiv Yar in the Bakhmut region said this week that newly mobilized recruits sent to his unit often die almost immediately.
“They recruit people who don’t know anything... They arrive and immediately, they are 200s [dead],” said the man, identified as Ruslan of the 88th Reconnaissance and Sabotage Brigade “Espanyola,” in a video shared on social media.
“There are six of us left: there were seventy, now there are six,” he said, his voice shaking. “You drive over corpses – there’s no other way... We’ve got three brigades buried under slabs.”
Data from Ukraine’s general staff, supported by reports from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), corroborates the high Russian losses, estimating around 210,000 casualties during the summer offensive alone, with only minimal territorial gains.
But Anna, the military source, warned that Western observers misunderstand these numbers.
“We cannot claim that the equation of X Russian casualties equals them winning or losing because while every soldier is a life to us, for Putin every soldier is simply a means to an end, of which he has a never-ending supply,” she said.
“They are more upset to be sanctioned by the United States than to lose 500,000 men.”
'Cannibalistic Tactics'
Anna described the war as one of manpower, where Russia’s sheer numbers and willingness to send relentless waves of men are hitting Ukrainian forces hard.
“The partners and public must realise that the Kremlin doesn’t view its infantry as humans but chattels. Every soldier is a tool to either acquire land or die trying, all the better if they take us with them.”
This assessment was shared by Colonel Oleksandr Zavtonov of Ukraine’s 30th Marine Corps, serving in the Kherson direction.
“Attacks are happening constantly, day after day. Month after month,” he told The Telegraph. He noted that while radio intercepts often catch Russian soldiers refusing to assault, their commanders are "indifferent."
Colonel Zavtonov said the attacks, while not always large-scale, are continuous and aimed at exhausting Ukrainian forces.
“We see that the enemy has no limits in the cost of human lives, which to the civilised world looks like cannibalistic tactics,” he concluded. “For the Russians, this is the norm – they always fight like this, without valuing human life.”
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