A Russian soldier who was held as a prisoner of war in Ukraine was arrested in Moscow on Friday and charged with “collaboration” while he was in Ukrainian captivity, a Moscow military court told independent news outlet Mediazona.
Pavel Guguev had been given early release from a Russian prison where he had been serving a 12-year sentence for murder to go and fight with the Russian military in Ukraine. While serving, he was captured by Ukrainians troops and became a POW.
While in a Ukrainian POW camp, Guguev gave an interview to Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Karpenko in which he criticised Russia’s military leadership and described the enormous losses being suffered by the Russian army. The interview, which was posted online in May 2023, has been viewed nearly 1.8 million times.