Fantasy maps filling and real losses. A Russian military draftsman recalls faking battlefield “advances” for his commanders and explains why he deserted

Vyacheslav Boyarintsev is just over 20 years old. He was born in one of the Cossack villages of the Krasnodar region. After school, Boyarintsev decided to work on trains: he studied to be an electric train driver and worked as a conductor.

During the spring 2024 conscription drive, he received his summons. Compulsory military service was not part of his plans; he was sceptical of the armed forces. YouTube videos and stories from friends who had already served only strengthened his conviction that the Russian army was not somewhere he wanted to be.

“But my relatives convinced me,” Boyarintsev tells Mediazona. “They said it was only a year. Everyone serves, and you’ll serve too: nothing terrible will happen to you. I thought, okay, fine.”

Boyarintsev left for the army in the autumn. Mediazona presents what happened to him next in the form of a monologue.

The honour guard, the funerals, and the contract

After being conscripted, I was assigned to the honour guard company in Volgograd—a prestigious post I was glad to get, as it wasn’t like the regular army. We served on Mamayev Kurgan, standing guard for parades, ceremonies, and funerals for fallen servicemen, firing blanks from carbines.

There was an insane number of funerals, over a hundred death notices a month from the region. Our unit couldn’t handle the volume, so we were mostly sent to the higher-status funerals for officers with state awards.

In December 2024, I decided to sign a contract [with the Ministry of Defence]. I’ll explain my thinking. The honour guard company: it’s prestigious. Then there were the 2.5 million [rouble] payments that the political officer promised us. He, by the way, used to play us episodes of Besogon [, a show by hyper-nationalist filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, ] as political information, and every morning after the canteen, he’d read out information about successes at the front. It was daily brainwashing.

And the main thing that reassured me was that contract soldiers from the honour guard company aren’t taken to the “special military operation”. This is easy to explain: there are very few contract soldiers in our company; they are needed to run drills with the conscripts, and they need to attend events that require experience. I signed the papers on December 12.

I definitely wasn’t worried that they might send me somewhere. Yes, I understood the contract was indefinite, but I still hoped the “operation” would end in the next few years. [I thought] I’ll serve quietly, get the money, and improve my financial situation, so to speak.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. First, contract service was hell. Nobody spared the young contract soldiers. Constant duties, assemblies. By that time, we had already received the 400,000 roubles from the Ministry of Defence. And when we signed the contract, the commander came and said: “Right, you’ve signed, you have money, so let’s buy something for the company.” The three of us chipped in and bought a tennis table. You can’t refuse. If you refuse, sanctions will follow, in the form of duties, constant guard shifts, or something else. 

I realised I had to find another place. One option was transferring to an aviation unit in Tikhoretsk. But that was a very long and risky path, as [contract soldiers] from that unit were being sent to Ukraine. I needed a safer option.

I was advised to transfer to the operations department [of the same military unit] as an assistant to the chief. It was a cushy job, so to speak: sit in an office, drink tea, and handle paperwork. I weighed it up, decided to transfer, and immediately rented an apartment. There wasn’t much work, but I barely got any days off either—maybe two or three a month. There just weren’t enough people; the entire core staff of the operations department was already in Ukraine, some in the Donetsk region, some in Makiivka.

The “underground” in Avdiivka. How Boyarintsev ended up in Ukraine

I served peacefully until July [2025]. They let me go on leave and told me that when I returned, I would be going to the “special military operation” zone. They said: “You’ll go to Donetsk, to the command post. There’s a bunker there, almost two levels down: so it’s safe. You’ll stay a bit, get your combat veteran status, earn some money, and come back.”

It was scary to go. I’d seen how the AFU just obliterate those command posts. Plus, just as I was leaving, the AFU hit the 8th Army command post in Donetsk. Our division reports to the 8th Army. I already had doubts then: to go or not to go.

They told me: “You’ll be working on maps there, plotting the situation.” They said it was a cushy job. In short, they convinced me. I had no particular desire to go. I understood it was a combat zone. But I thought, okay, fine, I can endure it for a month or two.

I arrive in Donetsk after my leave; they drive me to Yasynuvata, to the command post. Once there, they tell me: “My friend, you’ll be heading to Avdiivka.” I got a bit scared: Avdiivka is much closer to the front line than Yasynuvata and Donetsk. About 20–25 kilometres to the direct line of contact between the AFU and Russian forces.

They brought me to some random forest, to the “underground”: the division’s forward control post. It was just a dugout lined with planks, about 20 metres wide and maybe 300–350 metres long.

I didn’t see anyone in Avdiivka itself. Not a single local resident, except for some grandma selling groceries. Not a single intact building.

I met the head of the operations department, Colonel Dmitry Chernik. They told me I would be performing the duties of a situation map draftsman, but holding the title of assistant to the head of the operations department.

There was a unit known as the Combat Control Group (GBU in Russian), where the general and the heads of all the division’s branches and services were stationed. The room contained a wall of monitors that the service chiefs, and the general himself, used to track the situation at the front. The screens displayed live feeds from drones.

Maps and coordinates. What a draftsman does in war

We had a small, separate room known as the “room for chiefs of branches and services.” In this room worked me, the senior assistant to the head of the operations department, the assistant to the chief of intelligence, and the electronic warfare guy.

What were my duties? Plotting the situation on the main map (which was in the GBU), plotting the situation on the electronic map, and plotting the situation on the general’s tablet. That is, every evening I would take his tablet and draw the changes in the battlefield situation on it, based on information we received from the command post.

For example, from such-and-such a wooded area, Russian soldiers advanced to this wooded area, or slightly further. On the maps, the wooded areas are divided into squares. I would, for example, apply the colour-fill showing the regiments’ advance from the 16th to the 18th squares.

At first, the work felt overwhelming. The workload was enormous. I alone was responsible for plotting the data on the electronic map, the tablet, and the live printed map. On top of that, we had to revise the decision for the offensive very frequently.

A lieutenant general from the 8th Army with the call sign “Barkas” would come by, and after each of his visits, I personally had to redo the entire decision for the offensive.

The process was extremely time-consuming; sometimes I had to redraw the map until three in the morning.

From the command post, via a secure military data network (ZSPD), they would send us one or two sheets, and on them were the designations of the wooded areas and [information on] where and how far the soldiers had advanced. If it was a forest, you could tell from the coordinates that, say, three men from the 57th Regiment, First Battalion, First Company, were sitting right here.

As advances were made, a colour-fill was applied to the map. Yellow highlighted areas where soldiers were, for example, during the day. Orange designated soldiers securing a position.

Two large maps were printed per week, the ones that lay in the GBU. All the chiefs of branches and services plotted their own situation on this map. That is, I plotted the advances and positions of the regiments. The head of the UAV department marked drone strikes; the head of artillery also drew based on his data. They also plotted drone hits from the AFU side. The head of the GBU was responsible for air strikes with FAB glide bombs, on areas where Ukrainians were concentrated; he also plotted the situation. As a result, the large map had to be printed twice a week. It was maybe one and a half metres by one and a half metres [roughly 5 feet by 5 feet].

And small maps, about 50 by 50 centimetres, were printed daily. These were the regiment maps. The regiments sent us maps of their situation every day. I examined them and took these maps to the GBU. They sent them electronically, and I just transferred them to my computer and printed them.

What was in these maps? They sent decisions for the offensive planned for the next day. For example, today is November 4, and today they send the data for November 5. The maps show how the regiments and their units will move, by which routes, and with how many men.

The decision for the offensive is when the current positions of the regiments are plotted, and then small arrows are drawn. We called them glamuriki, [“glam-arrows”— Boyarintsev did not explain why this name was chosen, but it stuck at their command post].

Under these glam-arrows is the designation of the regiment, battalion, and the dates. That is, on each separate arrow there is a date and the name of the regiment. Which regiment is going in which direction. And these glam-arrows are plotted in all directions toward the next objective.

The line of departure for the attack is also marked, followed by lots of glamuriki. For example, by the 10th [of the month], they must be here; by the 11th, here; by the 12th, way over there.

E-scooters in October. The results of Russian army offensives

In most cases, the command sets unrealistic objectives for an offensive. I personally plotted these decisions on the map. For example, they had to advance 18 kilometres in five days, even though everyone understood this was insane.

Or like what happened recently, on October 5–8, in the area of Rusyn Yar, a village in the Donetsk region, the 33rd, 57th, and 242nd regiments were conducting offensive operations. That was when the ammonia pipeline exploded. The offensive was just awful. All the equipment was burned, and a huge number of men died. A pointless attack. Probably just like all the other attacks Russia is conducting right now.

How was that attack carried out? The senior assistant to the head of the operations department handled the Combat and Strength Report (BChS). The report reflects the number of men and vehicles involved in the offensive. What was in there? If I’m not mistaken, tanks, IFVs, several motorcycles, and, most importantly, scooters. This was October, and Russian soldiers were attacking on electric scooters. It was just awful.

The offensive failed, it stalled; no one secured any positions. The ammonia pipeline, if I recall correctly, had been mined. And then they dropped a munition on it from a Baba Yaga. I heard this from the general; he said it himself. But what really happened there, I have no idea. The pipeline rupture completely halted the offensive; ammonia is dangerous to people.

There was this one story. In the Poltavka area, there’s a large forest, two kilometres wide and three long. These were staging areas [for troops]. The 33rd and 57th regiments were dug in in that forest. And before the offensive, when a large number of men had gathered (40–50 men in each regiment) suddenly one night, [multiple Baba Yaga drones] started bombing the entire forest.

The deputy chief of staff of the 57th Regiment (his call sign is Topaz) calls me and says: “This is some kind of crime. I think our own guys sold us out. We sat there for a week, and just when we were fully assembled, the drones flew in and wiped out half the regiment.”

He was hysterical, asking how this could happen. Topaz told me that the regiment’s losses in August were over 300 men. He told me personally: “I basically get a new regiment formed every three months.” The losses are that high.

The operations duty officer handled information on losses. He was sent this data daily, and he then reported it to the general. And the general would report it to higher command at the morning briefing. The information about losses came from the regiments. In the underground bunker, I didn’t have access to it.

But I was familiar with some of the data from back when I was serving in Volgograd. Back then, I handled reports for the acting division commander. These reports included data on the wounded, the dead, information on payments, and on AWOLs. The AWOL data was the most surprising. Because the numbers, at that time, were huge. Dozens [of soldiers were deserting] almost daily; the number was growing. But I can’t give a specific figure now because too much time has passed.

The only way I could tell that there had been losses was when positions were removed from the map.

Sometimes I heard things about losses from the operations duty officer. Daily losses could be around a dozen men as [Cargo 200, KIA] and [Cargo 300, wounded].

“Claiming gains on credit.” How the Russian military deceives itself

The information that the regiments submit [to headquarters] is mostly irrelevant and unrealistic. These “gains claimed on credit”, which everyone knows about: they really exist.

The regiments submit data claiming they have completely taken, say, Rusyn Yar or Poltavka. I, of course, colour them in, and then in the evening, I open Michael Nacke, [a popular anti-war Russian blogger] and look at the DeepState map, [a Ukrainian project that tracks the front line], and I see that all of Rusyn Yar is in the grey zone. Again, I spoke directly with the chiefs of staff and the regiments, and they told me: “It’s a clusterfuck. What we’re submitting [about advances]... it’s a total clusterfuck, we can’t possibly be there.”

Most likely [the falsification happens] at the regimental commander level. They submit the information to the division, and from the division, the information goes to the army. And in the army, they bullshit even more. We would receive the electronic colour-fill of the division’s position from the army, and I personally saw that the figures were unrealistic. The colour-fill that the regimental commanders give me differs by one and a half to two kilometres from the fill that comes from the army. It’s wildly different. At the army level, there is even greater falsification of what is actually happening.

I’ll explain how this advance is plotted. Take a wooded area that’s a kilometre long. Two men are there at one end, and two men an the other. On the maps, this area is automatically coloured in as fully captured. Supposedly, it’s all under the control of the Russian Federation. Two men sit there somewhere, and they colour in 300–400 metres. Even though there is no certain Russian hold on these positions.

That is, first they lie that the area is under control, and then they send units there. In the end, they are deceiving themselves.

In September, there was an incident where the map showed one zone near Toretsk as almost completely under the control of the 33rd and 57th regiments. Marines and spetsnaz forces went in, but it turned out the AFU were there. All Russians were pushed out.

Everything the [pro-war milbloggers] say is, for the most part, true. About the inaccurate troop positions, about the “meat grinder assaults” or the assaults on scooters: it’s all true.

What else can I remember? The 242nd Regiment. They needed to reach Torske and Mayak. These are small populated areas. I plotted that decision. The Russian forces were concentrated in Rusyn Yar, and they were advancing north from there. The task to capture the Mayak and Torske zone was already set when I arrived in the summer. By October, they hadn’t advanced even two kilometres. What they are drawing, I just don’t understand.

One time, a colour-fill came to me from the General Staff. On a digital map, it’s coloured red. This was in September, when [Valery] Gerasimov was visiting us. This fill was sent so I could make new maps specifically for Gerasimov. To show that this is supposedly our troop positions. It was such nonsense; the troop positions on that fill were drastically different from the real situation. There couldn’t have been Russians in the zone shown on the map.

This was September. It was when there was that whole fuss about Gerasimov allegedly disappearing, back during the military exercises in Belarus. Michael Nacke even put out a video saying Gerasimov was missing and they allegedly wanted to remove him from his post. At that exact moment, he was with us in Avdiivka.

So, there you have it. I was making maps specifically for Gerasimov based on colour-fills from the General Staff. That is, one fill comes from the division, but for Gerasimov’s arrival, they sent us the General Staff’s fill. So that [I] would print a map with that fill specifically for him. Absurd.

Nuclear ravings and the capture of Odesa. Commanders, comrades, and the atmosphere at the front

The attitude from my superior, Colonel Chernik, was awful. I think he’s a mentally unstable person, a moral degenerate, and an energy vampire. He’s 45–46 years old, but he looks much older. Short, wrinkled, bald, with a bald patch on his head; constantly grunting.

He has his own strange world in his head. He and some of the other service chiefs called the Ukrainians “Germans.” What infuriated me most was when they occupied Yablonivka. He came in then and said with such joy: “Have we really liberated Yablonivka?”

This newspeak was so infuriating; I felt literal disgust at his words. It’s horrible, truly, when you see with your own eyes what is happening there, and he calls it “liberation.”

There was another dumbass, a totally crazy guy. I swear, every day he raved about hitting Ukraine with nuclear missiles.

He arrived as an appointee from the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade. A mobilised captain, about 50 years old, Tolik, I think his name was. Looked like an alcoholic, slurred speech, moved like a robot. He once served in the regiment responsible for all of Russia’s nuclear weapons. Tolik left the service with the rank of captain, and during the war, he was mobilised.

Before ending up with us, this idiot was in the Kursk region. And he told me how they cut off the heads of captured Ukrainians and stuck them on stakes.

And so this captain, every day, several times a day, raved about hitting Ukraine with nuclear weapons. Wanting the artillerymen to fire nuclear weapons too.

Although there weren’t many idiots like him. The others understood perfectly well the criminality of the war; they understood they would never win this war, but they continued to do their jobs. They have no other options.

Nobody believed in a truce. The head of my department, the same Chernik, said that we wouldn’t stop until we took Odesa and the Kharkiv region.

Dreams of the “underground.” Escaping Russia

I’ll be totally honest. First, and most importantly, I didn’t want to take part in any of this. I didn’t want to have the status of a serviceman in the Russian army. I didn’t want the status of a combat veteran; I didn’t want to receive awards, much less put them on and wear them. For me personally, this is awful. It doesn’t fit within the bounds of my conscience, I would say.

I personally see the Russian army as similar to the Third Reich’s army; it’s no different. These are my convictions. I don’t want to be a fascist, a Nazi; I just want to live, I want to bring good to people.

I don’t want to kill anyone. And the second point is my own life. Because there was heavy shelling; I was scared for my life. There, you understand that your life could end today. You always think about it, day and night. Shells landed day and night.

The most massive [attack] was when a salvo of HIMARS landed, but it missed. They hit just across the road. Back when I was still in Avdiivka, I decided for myself that I would definitely get out of here. I also came across a Mediazona video about ways to flee the front.

I was sent on leave, and I just didn’t return from leave. I came home, rested, collected myself, and began planning my escape from Russia. My relatives knew nothing about my decision. My parents only found out about my disappearance when the unit started calling them.

It doesn’t feel real [that I managed to leave Russia]. Sometimes I look around [and think]: “It’s okay, everything is calm.” Although I still get scared by sudden noises. And at night, I constantly dream about the army, about walking through the “underground” and its offices.

Editor: Maxim Litavrin