Vladimir Putin named Andrei Grigoriev the Hero of Russia after he killed a Ukrainian in a hand-to-hand fight, filmed by a GoPro camera.
Vladimir Putin awarded Russia’s highest honor, the title of Hero of Russia, to Andrei Grigoriev, a Russian soldier who killed a Ukrainian soldier during hand-to-hand combat last November.
This decision, announced by the Kremlin this Saturday, highlights the intensity and extreme violence of the conflict in Ukraine. The video showing the combat scene, filmed using a GoPro camera worn by a Ukrainian soldier, was published in early January by Russian military bloggers.
The Ukrainian soldier killed by Andrei Grigoriev in November 2024 following a clash near Donetsk is Dmytro Maslovsky.
A fight glorified by the Russian media
In the video, we see the latter advancing towards a house before the two men engage in an exchange of fire. After throwing a grenade inside, the Ukrainian soldier and his opponent fight with their bare hands and knives. At the end of the video, the Ukrainian soldier asks his attacker to let him die in peace, uttering poignant words like “goodbye, mother”.
Pro-Kremlin media identified the Russian soldier as Andrei Grigoriev, a native of the Siberian region of Yakutia, an area populated mainly by Yakuts. On Telegram, the leader of Yakutia praised Grigoriev’s heroism by presenting him with a traditional Yakut knife in recognition of his feat. “It is these kinds of people who make our great Russia stronger,” added Aïssen Nikolaev, leader of the region according to AFP.
Many Russian fighters in Ukraine, lured by promises of high salaries, come from poor regions, particularly those with ethnic minorities like the Yakuts.
The Ukrainian media Suspilne, for its part, identified the Ukrainian soldier killed as Dmytro Maslovsky, originally from the Odessa region. His death occurred in November near Trudove, Donetsk region. According to estimates, the fighting in Ukraine has caused several hundred thousand deaths and injuries since the Russian invasion began in February 2022.
