Russian soldiers who want to surrender reach out to Ukraine en masse

KYIV -- A website created for Russian soldiers who want to surrender has drawn more than 15 million visitors over the last seven months, Ukrainian officials said.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 but has proven unable to defeat its much smaller neighbour.

The "I Want to Live" website, overseen by Ukraine's Co-ordinating Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (KShVOV), has attracted a high volume of traffic since its inception, organisation staff told Caravanserai.

It is likely that this trend will continue, analysts say, as more Russians being sent to the front come to view voluntary surrender as their best option.

The other option, as proven by many months of combat around Bakhmut, is being sent out to die in hopeless "human wave" attacks.

The "I Want to Live" hotline meanwhile fields an average of about 80 calls per day from those inside Russia or the occupied territories of Ukraine who do not want to die for the Russian regime and wish to surrender.

"We officially launched on September 18, 2022, a few days before [Russian President Vladimir] Putin announced the start of the mobilisation," "I Want to Live" spokesman Vitaly Matvienko told Caravanserai.

"From that moment, the number of calls and messages we were getting started rising by the day," said Matvienko, who is on KShVOV's staff.

Initially overseen by Ukrainian National Police, the hotline was later transferred to KShVOV.

Now "I Want to Live" is staffed around the clock by operators who take calls and process messages from several messaging apps.

"We've already received 12,000 inquiries, meaning that these are people who have contacted us at the centre through different channels and really want to surrender," Matvienko said.

"They haven't surrendered yet, but they already have a clear intention to do so, since they understand what kind of country they live in," he said.

'Please get me out of here'

In addition to the inquiries coming from active soldiers, Matvienko said, the initiative fields a huge number of calls from civilians who fear they will be drafted soon.

The calls are coming mainly from the Moscow and Leningrad regions, as well as from Chelyabinsk, Novgorod and occupied Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea.

"They ask us about the conditions that captives are held in," Matvienko said, noting that workers at the centre sometimes find themselves offering words of comfort to Russians who break down in tears over the phone.

"One time a guy of around 30 or 35 called," he said. "He hadn't been drafted yet but he said that he'd previously done his military service and knew he'd be drafted any day. He said, 'Please get me out of here.'"

"We know full well that after 20 years of propaganda in Russia, the people there have been thoroughly brainwashed, but there's still a faction of intelligent people who can think critically," Matvienko said.

"They don't want to fight. They want to save their own lives by turning themselves in," he added. "It's a good alternative."

Sensing the danger that the "I Want to Live" programme poses to the Russian army, Russian censor Roskomnadzor blocks the site in Russia.

And in a pre-emptive move to intimidate would-be defectors, Russia's Supreme Court on March 21 ruled that servicemen could receive up to 10 years in prison for voluntarily surrendering.

Cash awards for defectors

Meanwhile, Ukraine has devised fresh strategies to convince Russian soldiers to give themselves up, demonstrating noteworthy creativity.

The Ukrainian military has devised distinctive advertising campaigns, said Konstantin Melnikov, a war correspondent who is often on the front line.

In one such campaign, he told Caravanserai, Ukrainian troops print special pamphlets, load them into shells and fire them over Russian-occupied territory with a Grad rocket launcher.

"The pamphlets say in Russian that Russians should surrender voluntarily, and they give the [Ukrainian] General Staff's accurate statistics about Russian losses," he said.

"They also contain phone numbers they can call if they want to turn themselves in," he added. "There's also a price list showing how much money you can get if you surrender with equipment."

Surrendering servicemen who deliver a tank can collect a payment of $10,000.

Analysts predict that more and more Russians will give themselves up, noting that unlike Russia, Ukraine abides by the Geneva Conventions when it comes to respecting the rights of prisoners of war (POWs).

'We don't want to go back'

A March 28 monitoring mission at one of the camps holding Russian captives verified that international standards for the treatment of prisoners are being met, said Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets.

Lubinets and his staff conducted the mission.

"We established that the Russian [POWs] are being held in accordance with the requirements of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War," Lubinets wrote on his Telegram channel.

"The temperature, conditions in the facilities and the daily routine meet all the convention's requirements," he said.

"The [POWs] have the right to take turns contacting their relatives through periodic phone calls, as well as the right to work," he added. "They are fed a military-issue menu."

"When the Russians are taken prisoner, they see that the conditions of captivity aren't demeaning," human rights and social activist Tatyana Ivanova told Caravanserai.

"Of course it's not a resort, but everything is organised there," Ivanova said.

"Sure, they're under guard; sure, they're in detention centres, but they're being held separately from criminals. They're not being held in cells with people who have committed crimes."

Some POWs vow not to return to Russia upon their release.

"These people say, we're willing to work on construction sites here and repair what we destroyed, but we don't want to go back to Russia," Ivanova said.

"They don't want to return because they know what's waiting for them back home."