Russian soldier who surrendered to save his life now faces prosecution at home
Russian soldier Vladislav Balgrabsky, who surrendered to Ukrainian forces in 2024 hoping to survive and see his family again, is now being tried in Russia after being returned in a prisoner exchange.
Vladislav Balgrabsky, a 30-year-old former company commander in Russia's 7th Motorized Rifle Regiment, surrendered to Ukrainian forces in the summer of 2024 along with five soldiers under his command. According to his own account, he had received an order he described as deliberately impossible to carry out.
The case became widely known in April 2025, when Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov published a video in which Balgrabsky explained his decision. He said he chose to surrender in order to survive, to be able to see his family and child again, and to keep the men under his command alive. In the recording he also urged other Russian soldiers to surrender rather than continue fighting. The video has since been viewed more than 990,000 times online.
Return and charges
About eight months later, in December 2025, the Moscow Garrison Military Court's website published information showing that Balgrabsky's pretrial detention had been extended — a step that has since been repeated twice more. This indicates he is being held in custody and that his case is not being heard in absentia. The independent outlet Mediazona reported on Friday that sometime between April and December 2025, Balgrabsky was apparently handed back to Russia as part of one of at least seven prisoner exchanges conducted between Russia and Ukraine during that period. He now faces charges in Russia of voluntary surrender, desertion, and treason.
Legal background
The article criminalizing voluntary surrender was added to Russia's Criminal Code in 2022, following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia's Supreme Court has ruled that a surrender counts as voluntary if it was made deliberately, despite the existence of an opportunity to resist. The first sentence under this article was handed down in April 2025, when junior sergeant Roman Ivanishin was sentenced to 15 years in prison for a similar case — he had surrendered in 2023 and urged fellow soldiers to flee their units, and was later also returned to Russia through a prisoner exchange.
