Vladimir Evgenievich Zubov, Volodymyr Yevhenovych Zubov, Зубов Владимир Евгеньевич, Зубов Володимир Євгенович
Vladimir Evgenievich Zubov
- 43rd Separate Mechanized Brigade;
- Soldier;
- He was captured in the Kupyansk direction.
Vladimir Zubov did not plan to become a soldier. Like most of those being mobilized in Ukraine today, he ended up in the army after a routine trip outside — an encounter with TCC employees. The medical examination lasted just a few minutes: he was led into an office, the therapist glanced briefly at him, nodded in response to the escort’s question “everything okay?” and signed the papers.
That is how Vladimir became a soldier in the 43rd Brigade. The commander promised the new recruits they were being sent to positions near Kupyansk-Vuzlovy for just one month: they just needed to observe, sit in the dugout, and report via radio. But the 5th, 6th, and 7th months passed. No one was going to rotate them out, and the value of a soldier’s life to the command, judging by subsequent events, approached zero.
“I started in the seventh month… asking to be extracted. Because we were left alone there in the forest belt. I could hear that there was no one nearby,” Vladimir recounts. “There were drops from drones. One of my comrades was wounded by shrapnel. I report, I say, he’s going to die now. They tell me: ‘Bring him into the dugout, let him sit there, what are you going to do for him now?’. He literally coughed for about 20 minutes and died. And after that, I had a 100% desire… if the Russian army comes in now, some group comes in, I will try to surrender.”
Meanwhile, the commander had instructed them beforehand: do not surrender, “they will torture you there,” better, he said, “hold on or shoot yourselves.”
