A Russian deserter recounts wounding himself — and his own men — to escape the Ukraine war

This Friday, the French-German broadcaster ARTE released journalist Maria Borzunova’s interview with Yevgeny Korobov, a 30-year-old senior lieutenant who deserted from the Russian army several months into the full-scale war in Ukraine. In his first-ever interview, Korobov described his preparations for the February 2022 invasion, his inadvertent role in Russian propaganda, and how he deliberately injured himself and several fellow soldiers to escape further combat.

Yevgeny Korobov is originally from Krasnoyarsk. He completed cadet training, later graduated from a military academy, and fought with the Russian military in Syria. “People enlist with these noble ideas about service,” Korobov told Borzunova, “but what they get instead is idiocy, total incompetence, and people treating you like garbage.”

His unit was transferred to the Ukrainian border just a few weeks before the invasion began in February 2022. He recalled an army commander visiting them and assuring the soldiers that there would be no war. “Yes, there’s some tension, but we’re just flexing our muscles. By March 8, you’ll already be home,” Korobov remembered him saying.

Instead, Korobov was ordered to attack Kyiv, escorting convoys of military equipment and scouting the routes. When his convoy was ambushed and another Russian convoy approaching from the opposite direction came under fire, Korobov helped soldiers in both convoys escape alive. A colonel from the second convoy later embellished this incident, spinning the retreat into a battlefield feat for the Russian media. “His motives were noble. Did it backfire? Probably,” Korobov told Borzunova.

Yevgeny’s mother learned of his supposed “heroism” from television. News reports claimed that the unit under Korobov’s command had fallen into an ambush, returned fire, and destroyed “three armored units, two mortar crews, and at least 15 [Ukrainian] nationalists.” He was nominated for an award and later featured as a hero on Andrey Malakhov’s TV show (“It was an order,” Korobov explained). By the time the program was taped, Korobov had already been injured at the front, but neither his commanders nor the journalists knew the wound was self-inflicted.

Korobov’s injury occurred during Russia’s retreat from Kyiv, when Moscow shifted its focus to capturing the Donbas region: 

Pressed on whether his men knew he would turn his weapon on them, Korobov answered: “They’ll thank me later. […] People mess themselves up out there all the time. I saw my chance. There was no way out. It’s scary, it hurts, but whatever.”

As he was being evacuated, Korobov told officials that he had come under enemy fire. After medical treatment and rehab, he looked for ways to avoid returning to the front. He said he was even ready to go to prison, but by then, convicts were also being recruited for the war. He ordered forged documents on the Darknet, planning to leave the country, but making them took time, and he worried that Russia would declare martial law, closing the borders. In mid-January 2023, he arrived in Kazakhstan.

Many of Korobov’s former comrades have been killed in Ukraine, and many others fled as he did. He now lives in Astana and works as a bartender. With help from human rights activist Artur Alkhasov, Korobov hopes to win refugee status in Kazakhstan — a key reason he agreed to be interviewed. “By helping a Russian deserter, you help end the war. Putin’s not the one pulling the trigger — somebody else is. If a [Russian soldier] doesn’t want to do it and thinks it’s wrong, I believe it’s right to help him,” Alkhasov said.

Korobov admits to killing Ukrainian soldiers, but he says he did it to stay alive, insisting that he would have gone home when the war began if it had been allowed. “War leads people to do terrible things, and those responsible deserve punishment,” he explained. “But if someone fought out of ignorance, was misled, believed the wrong things, and later realized it, then that person should have the chance to escape the front. Even those who ended up [in the Russian army] deserve the chance to set things right.”

Today, Korobov takes in other Russian deserters, calling his apartment a “mini-shelter.” Right now, he’s living with a former soldier named Nikita (whose face is blurred in Borzunova’s interview). Nikita was pulled off the street in a random document check and sent to the front. After some seven months in combat, he was seriously wounded. When Nikita recovered, he left the hospital, bought a new outfit at a thrift store, and fled Russia. He told Borzunova: “My head’s a mess. I survived all that crap. No one owes me anything, fine. But why the hell did I go through it if nobody needs me, if I’m useless, with no future, no documents, nothing? What was the point of any of it?”