A severed ear. An order to “destroy everything you see.” Houses looted or pulverized by Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers.
Twenty-one-year-old Russian soldier Stanislav Shmatov had no idea the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was recording his conversations when he contacted family back in Russia this spring from northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.
Like other Russian military personnel in Ukraine in the first months after the February 24 invasion, he spoke freely.
