A video has emerged purporting to show a Russian commander captured during a daring raid by Ukrainian special forces showing his captors the positions of Moscow’s troops in an area of occupied Kherson.
According to the Russian Telegram account Grey Zone, the man in the video is Major Tomov, commander of the battalion of 1822 of the Russian Armed Forces, who went missing earlier this week.
He was captured during an operation conducted by Ukrainian special forces on a settlement on the occupied left-bank of the Dnipro River and until now there was no news of his whereabouts.
The new video shows Major Tomov crouching over a map, appearing to be informing his captors of troop positions on the Russian-occupied side of the river.
The Russian commander of the #1822 battalion from Samara city, Major Tomov, who disappeared 5 days ago, resurfaced alive on the Ukrainian side. In this video he helps the #Ukrainian officers by disclosing and putting on the map the Russian positions and fortifications along the… pic.twitter.com/rZYCEjNLjg
— Viktor Kovalenko (@MrKovalenko) August 13, 2023
The caption to the Grey Zone post reads: “To dispel all rumors and doubts, as well as answer questions: in the video, the commander of the reconnaissance group and the commander of the battalion of 1822 of the Russian Armed Forces, Major Tomov, is captured by the enemy, having got there as a result of a battle near the settlement of Cossack Camps.
“At the time of the morning of August 9, he was alive. Now I have no data, but I think and hope that it is also alive. The fate of the rest of the fighters of his group is unknown to me.”
The video has not been independently verified.
The video has caused outrage among those Russians commenting on the post as Grey Zone later wrote an update defending Major Tomov for sharing information with the Ukrainians and lambasting those saying they would rather die than do such a thing.
ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 2, 2024
“Usually those who scream about blowing themselves up with a grenade, in reality, then call their mother from captivity on video,” the update read.
“I personally think that until you yourself have been in a similar situation, never promise how you would behave in it, and even more so, do not try to judge those who are in it.”
According to the independent Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and its sources, early on Tuesday morning, Ukrainian forces landed up to seven boats – each carrying around six to seven soldiers – near the settlement of Kozachi Laheri, and then broke through Russian defensive lines, and advanced up to 800 meters deep.
A pro-Russian milblogger said that the raid caused “some inevitable and extremely painful problems” to Russian forces.
But Kyiv has remained tight-lipped – speaking on Wednesday, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar Ukraine "does not confirm the information" about the raid.
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