The 42-year-old Russian military man hid for six months in abandoned buildings in the Kharkiv region, which was liberated by Kyiv forces in September, The Guardian reports. The fighters were detained by regional police officers who were patrolling in the Kupyansk region.

The soldier, dressed in civilian clothes, is a member of the 27th Separate Guards Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade and was detained on Monday during a patrol by regional militiamen of villages in the Kupyansk-Vuzlovoi region.

“After the search, it turned out that the man, who comes from the Moscow region, is a serviceman of the 27th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,” the police said in a statement. “The detainee stated that he had been hiding since the release by the Armed Forces of Ukraine of the Kupyan district.”

The man will be interrogated by the police to find out how he managed to hold out for six months in the territory conquered by the Ukrainians.

The soldier reportedly separated from his unit while fleeing a Ukrainian counteroffensive in September 2022. It is still unclear how he managed to hide for six months after Putin’s forces retreated following Ukraine’s surprise counterattack in the Kharkiv region.

In September 2022, in a matter of days, Ukraine pushed the Russians out of an area of ​​more than 6,000 square kilometers and consolidated its control over the Kharkiv region, claiming the territories captured by Moscow on the first day of the invasion.

Shortly after the release, the Ukrainian authorities launched a large-scale search operation for captured Russian servicemen who remained or remained active as saboteurs.

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