Ukrainian First Lieutenant Pavlo Oleinik, 25, confirms that he joined the enemy army in order to evade Russian capture. Before he was captured in October 2024 by the Russian army in the Donbas region, he was serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
While in Russian captivity, Pavlo Oleinik was subjected to beatings, electric shocks, and psychological violence. He therefore accepted the Russians' offer to join what is known as the "Maxim Krivonis Battalion" - named after a 17th-century Ukrainian Cossack colonel. Regarding his joining this battalion, Oleinik told us that he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to reach the front with the aim of escaping from there to an area controlled by Ukraine. DW was able to contact him in writing through a lawyer.
"Ukrainian volunteers" in the Russian army
Russian state media spoke for the first time in early 2023 about the formation of units consisting of former soldiers of the Ukrainian army. It was reported at the time that “former Ukrainian prisoners of war” had taken an oath of loyalty to Russia.
The Russian propaganda machine also announced the formation of six such units, which were integrated in August 2026 into the “Ukrainian Volunteer Special Forces Brigade.”
The Krivonis Battalion, which was formed three years ago, is considered the most visible in the media among the formations that joined the "Special Forces Brigade." Unlike other formations, there are also indications that this battalion participated in combat.
Although its exact size is unknown, the media estimates its number at about 200 individuals, while published videos show only a few dozen of them. The Ukrainian "Suspilny" channel was able to identify more than 30 members of the battalion, and confirmed that they were Ukrainian citizens who fell into Russian captivity in 2023 and 2024.
It is reported that this formation is led by Vyacheslav Gobin, a former member of the Dergachy District Council in the Ukrainian Kharkiv region, who defected from Ukraine in 2014 and joined the Russian side.
His son, Svyatoslav, holds the position of deputy political director of this formation. He told Russian media that his battalion is not a unit of the Russian army, but rather a "Ukrainian volunteer formation."
Why does Russia use "Ukrainian volunteers"?
In this regard, Pavel Luzhin, a defense policy expert at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, says that in Russia there are generally no volunteer formations that “were not allowed from the beginning and are not subject to the control of the central government.”
Luzhin believes that such units composed of Ukrainians are merely a "tradition." Through it, Moscow wants to divert attention from the “Russian Volunteer Corps” and the “Russian Freedom Corps,” made up of Russian citizens fighting for Ukraine. This assessment was frequently mentioned by the Ukrainian intelligence services.
This is also confirmed by Ukrainian war veteran Yevgen Shibalov, who was captured by the Russians in 2022. According to him, the Russian military did not hide the fact that the “Russian Volunteer Corps” was the main reason for the formation of Russian units from Ukrainian volunteers.
Regarding this, Shibalov told DW: "They are disturbed by the presence of Russian citizens fighting alongside Ukraine, while there are no Ukrainians fighting alongside Russia."
To what extent are these formations considered “voluntary”?
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, more than 95 percent of Ukrainians reported after their release that they had been subjected to torture and ill-treatment during their captivity in Russia.
William Wiley of the non-governmental organization Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) believes that the physical and psychological condition of all the returned men raises “serious doubts” about their “voluntary recruitment.”
At the same time, Mykhailo Sava from the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties points to the criminal measures taken by the Ukrainian authorities against some members of those Russian formations. He says they likely moved voluntarily to the Russian side because they are being prosecuted.
But where exactly is the line between a decision made under pressure and a voluntary decision? Ukrainian human rights activist and war veteran Maxim Butkevich, who was in Russian captivity between 2022 and 2024, finds this difficult to say given the circumstances of Russian captivity. On the one hand, there is an “atmosphere of constant coercion and pressure” in Russia, and on the other hand, it is possible that some of the prisoners volunteered to join the Russian army because of their ideological affinity with the Russian occupiers.
How are Ukrainian prisoners recruited?
Butkevich told DW that in 2022 and 2023, the Russians offered all prisoners - using methods of enticement and intimidation - to move to the Russian side. In his case, this happened after he was subjected to his first severe torture. He says: “They wanted to prove to us that they can do anything to us, so we must agree to everything.”
Yevgen Shibalov also had to go through a similar experience. Regarding this, he said that they are trying to force the prisoners to confess to war crimes or recruit them for the benefit of Russian intelligence. They also look for people of "value" who could be candidates for prisoner exchanges. According to what Shibalov told DW, all prisoners are given certain proposals and offers after violent investigations and interrogations.
But these practices also have limits, Shibalov says: “It is possible to torture a person to force him to consent, but then comes the difficult moment when the person has to be handed a weapon.
For this reason, more emphasis is placed on psychological pressure and tricks to force prisoners to give voluntary consent.” This is also confirmed by Butkevich from his own experience. They also did not know anyone who wanted to join Russian military formations. Because, in her words, this represents a red line that cannot be crossed for most Ukrainians.
What happens after approval?
As for soldier Pavlo Oleinik, who is now in captivity in Ukraine after managing to escape, he talks about different experiences. Oleinik several times rejected the offer to join the Krivonis Battalion.
Only the fourth time did he decide to accept, but "only with the aim of escaping." He says that before that he was held in solitary confinement in the occupied Donbas region, where they interrogated him about military sites, his unit and his personal affairs.
Oleinik says: "I do not speak Russian well, so I answered the questions poorly and unclearly... Then they used physical violence and electric shocks against me. When I was asked to sign a paper agreeing to cooperate with the intelligence services of the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics, they locked me naked inside a small metal locker for eight hours."
Oleinik claims that he did not sign any papers related to the Russian Ministry of Defense, and that the contract he was offered was concluded with “an ordinary person providing military services.” After he agreed, he was given ideological lectures and shown pictures and videos inside rooms without windows, the contents of which he then had to recount.
Censorship and abuse in the Krivonis battalion
According to Oleinik, there were volunteers in the Krivonis battalion and other people who were forced to join it. In a video clip circulating on the Internet and believed to be taken from an interrogation in Ukraine, Oleinik says that the former Ukrainian prisoners of war in the unit, about 50 men, were guarded and all their movements were monitored by fighters from a special Russian military unit called “Redot.”
Oleinik told DW that he was given a phone there, but he was also being watched. Therefore, out of fear, he did not contact anyone in Ukraine. In that video, he also talks about beatings and torture inside the unit. Oleinik says that the men received their monthly salaries in envelopes delivered to them by a representative of Russian military intelligence.
Oleinik denies his participation in battles against Ukraine, because he said he had fled during his first mission in March 2025. At that time, he was sent with another member of the battalion as part of a group of eight Russian special forces soldiers to the town of Andreevka in Donetsk province. Before the mission to clear the area began, he fled through a field. Oleinik says that he hid from the raids inside basements and houses, and two days later he met Ukrainian soldiers.
Oleinik has now been detained for a year and a half by Ukrainian authorities, who are investigating possible high treason in the event of war. But so far no charges have been brought against him yet.
