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"Can I Be Taken Prisoner? I Don't Fight At All"

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"Can I Be Taken Prisoner? I Don't Fight At All"

An exclusive video of the Russian military surrendering to the Ukrainians.

After a series of setbacks at the front and the announcement of partial mobilization, Russian servicemen began contacting the Ukrainian side more often to surrender voluntarily.

- POW Coordination Staff, listening to you.

- Hello! I am a conscript from Russia. I am not going to fight. Can I be taken prisoner not to fight at all? I'm going to go anywhere.

This is one of the calls to the Ukrainian call center "I want to live," where they redirect all calls from citizens of the Russian Federation who have either already been mobilized or may be mobilized. The men call to find out if it is possible to surrender, how to do it, and whether they are guaranteed safety.

A True Time crew was able to visit the "I want to live" call center and see how it operates. According to the Ukrainian military, after a series of failures at the front and the announcement of partial mobilization, Russian servicemen began contacting the Ukrainian side more often in order to voluntarily surrender.

The project "I want to live" was created specifically to communicate with Russian soldiers and those citizens who were mobilized in the occupied Ukrainian territories. Oksana is a dispatcher. She is the person who establishes the first contact with callers. According to Oksana, most Russians who call are interested in the details of the surrender procedure. Here's another fragment of a conversation between an operator and a Russian soldier:

- There is a special chatbot on the telegram channel to make the surrender procedure safe; one needs to enter certain information there.

- I get it. Tell me if I'm not going to kill anybody. Will I be safe then?

"I want to live" center assures that all those who surrender are guaranteed safety. "Ukraine will obey all the Geneva conventions, precisely three meals daily, medical assistance, contacts with relatives. If a captive Russian serviceman does not wish to return to his homeland, Ukraine will consider the possibility of his stay on Ukrainian territory," Vitaly Matvienko, speaker of the "I want to live" project, a coordinating headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war, says.

Along with the announcement of mobilization in Russia, the criminal responsibility for voluntary surrender in captivity was toughened. Those who did it face up to ten years in prison. The Ukrainian project says it stops many Russian mobilized, so "I want to live" decided to meet the potential Russian prisoners of war.

"All servicemen who voluntarily surrender will be registered by Ukraine as captured in combat. In less than a month, more than two thousand Russian servicemen and their relatives have called "I want to live," Vitaly Matvienko says. According to him, the Russians wishing to surrender to Ukrainian captivity have similar motives: they are afraid to die or do not support the war against Ukraine as a matter of principle.

It is called a preliminary surrender to captivity. To do it for real, a Russian military man still needs to get into a war zone. When a potential prisoner of war finds himself in Ukraine, he will be contacted and told how to cross the front line.

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