The killing of two veteran Russian drone operators in Ukraine has sparked a frenzy among pro-Kremlin military bloggers, who say the experts were sent to fight as regular infantrymen.
In a video recorded before their deaths, the two operators said they were assigned to a suicide mission with an assault unit as punishment for arguing with their commander.
The clip of the experts – Dmitry “Gudon” Lysakovsky and Sergey “Ernst” Gertsai – was published posthumously, appearing on the Telegram channel “Northwind” on Friday.
The footage has since been widely circulated on Russian Telegram channels, with soldiers identified as members of the 87th Rifle Regiment fighting near Pokrosk in Donetsk.
Lysakovsky and Gritsai accused their new commander, Igor Puzyk, of disbanding their drone squad after falling out with him and filtering their team members into infantry platoons.
They further alleged that Poszek facilitated drug trafficking in his unit and falsely reported battlefield successes under his command.
Lysakovsky recorded a separate video message in which he sharply criticized Pizek and claimed the commander was being influenced by a soldier with ties to Ukrainian intelligence.
According to a translation by Estonian analyst War Translated, Lysakovski said, “Lies are an absolute norm.
“I'm recording this if I don't come back from the attack, and only then will this message carry any weight,” added Lesakowski.
He later said in another video that he was about to leave for a “storm” with his infantry unit and called on Russian men not to join the battle.
“Your job is to die here so that the regimental commander, reporting to the superiors, will look good,” he said. “These are his personal slaves.”
These two videos featuring him were also published by “North Wind” on Friday.
Past Russian media reports suggest that Lysakovsky was well-known 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 in early 2014.
He became the head of the DPR's aerial espionage unit by 2016, according to a Kommersant report that year, which said he was accused of corporate raids in Moscow.
As for Gertsai, Russian military bloggers who claimed to know him personally said 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”.
Russian response and official response
The footage sparked an uproar among Russian military bloggers over the weekend, many of whom reported independently that both men had been killed in combat.
Part of the backlash stems from assessments by pundits on the ground that Lysakowski and Gertsai were two of the best drone operators on the front line.
Several screenshots of Russian text messages were posted, in which Lysakovskiy asked for help transferring out of his unit.
“There is no equipment, no maps, no plans for mines. Nothing,” Lysakovsky wrote in a Sept. 10 message.
Dozens of Russian observers have criticized the circumstances of the killings, with some calling for a ban on assigning specialists such as snipers or drone operators to infantry strikes.
Pro-Russian Kremlin journalist Alexander Coates wrote, “The reality of reusing an effective UAV reconnaissance crew in the assault infantry under current circumstances is to sabotage it mildly”.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the deaths of Gretsi and Lysakovski on Sunday, writing that it would investigate their deaths.
The ministry said in a statement that the investigation would be conducted under the “personal control” of Deputy Defense Minister Viktor Gormykin and Russia's Armed Forces Chief Valery Gerasimov.
Some of the uproar has calmed down since the announcement. However, several prominent bloggers have expressed concern over what they say is a growing trend of Russian commanders wasting valuable expertise in front-line attacks.
Political commentator Svyatoslav Golikov wrote that the problem was “systematized” in the army due to a lack of manpower on the battlefield.
“This particular issue will be resolved. But only because it caused a ruckus,” Telegram channel Two Majors wrote.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider outside regular business hours.
Pokrosk, the city near which Lysakovsky and Gertsai were stationed, has been the center and source of much bloodshed on Ukraine's eastern front.
Russian troops have been pushing hard in recent months to capture the logistics hub, closing in on the outskirts of the city after weeks of slow advances.