The Army's Shadow: How Russian Families Search for Soldiers Missing in the War

The film opens with video appeals from relatives. People ask "all kind people" to share the post and help find a father, son or brother. A mother is looking for her son, Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich Rostovsky, born in 1984. Someone is searching for their brother, Denis Andreyevich Shestopalov. Another woman describes distinguishing features: the missing man may have had a ring with a black stone on his middle finger, and the family is ready to accept any information.

The author says that making this film was incredibly hard for him. He and his editor chose the topic when they began noticing more and more posts on social media from people searching for those missing in the war. He started joining groups where such searches are conducted and saw that there were an enormous number of people looking.

The journalist explains that talking with the families of those fighting carries risk: journalists in Russia face pressure and colossal censorship. To protect himself and his sources, he registered a fake profile on VKontakte under the pseudonym Yegor Parfyonov and used someone else's photo. For several weeks, or even months, he ran the page like an ordinary user, posting news and music so that it would look like the page of a real person.

By his estimate, he corresponded with roughly 100–150 women. Many of them, he says, are simply afraid and intimidated, so they don't want to say anything at all.

The filming required no fewer precautions. The camera operators always came from other regions, as a rule not neighboring the place where the subjects lived, so they would be harder to identify, for example via surveillance cameras. They traveled to the subjects only by taxi and paid in cash so as not to leave a digital trail.

One of the central stories is a mother's account of her son Vlad. He was a big young man, two meters tall and weighing 120 kg. He turned 19 on November 25, and in December he told his mother he was going to war. According to her, he repeated all the appealing things he had seen on television and reassured her: he wouldn't be running around with a rifle because he was young, and most likely they would put him on drones, since he was used to sitting with a joystick playing PlayStation.

Alongside this, the film plays a recruitment ad for UAV operators. It addresses the viewer in a gaming style: "want to become a legend," "this is your chance," "fly a drone, conduct reconnaissance and mercilessly take out enemy equipment," "official contract, stable payments, training, bonuses and benefits," "press start."

When Vlad was taken to the selection point on the 29th, large boards with photos of Heroes of Russia hung there. His mother said: "Look, someday you'll be up there too." He replied that he would only end up there if he was killed. Then the recruits were assigned, and Vlad told her: "Mom, they've put me down as a stormtrooper." His mother says the ground fell out from under her. She went there and explained that the boy had never even served in the army, and that he had been promised he wouldn't be made to dig trenches and would be sent to drones. According to her, the people she spoke with lowered their eyes and replied that they had never said any such thing.

The film raises the idea that for some Russian families, taking part in the war has become an economic decision. One English-speaking commentator cites economists: for a typical man in today's Russia, dying in this war may turn out to be the most "successful" outcome for his family. Another interviewee says the authorities have shaped a view of the war as a way to earn money: most of those fighting on the Russian side, according to him, do so because they are paid.

A woman talks about her husband, who loved his family very much. He would spend long stretches watching the news on his phone, and sometimes she came home to find him drinking. He said: "I'm sitting here, and over there such things are happening, I have to." She immediately replied that it was a one-way ticket.

Later he called from the front. She remembers his words: "You just can't imagine what's going on here." The day before, a group of people had gone out and not come back, and another one before that. They had to cross 12 km of open ground through a minefield. She understood that the chances of getting there and back were slim. He told her: if he made it, he would call in two months, and if not, someone would call her.

The film also shows a video appeal from servicemen: they say they are treated as expendable, that the command doesn't care about their lives, that they are being used as cannon fodder. The appeal ends with a plea for help.

The journalist explains why so many people are listed as missing. Today there is an enormous number of bodies lying at the front that no one collects: because of the sheer number of drones, neither side can evacuate the dead and wounded. He recounts deserters' stories: when a group is sent to retrieve a wounded man, the whole group gets killed. He has also seen videos on social media in which a wounded man is being carried on a stretcher, a drone strikes, and almost everyone dies.

The voice-over explains that Ukrainian drone videos are designed to intimidate the enemy. Drones saturate the "gray zone," a strip about 20 km wide along the front line, and according to the film they account for the overwhelming majority of the Russian army's losses. Kyiv, the film reports, claims it kills about 30,000 Russian soldiers a month.

One serviceman recounts how his commander summoned them and said that bags of "two-hundreds" (the dead) had been brought back from the front line. They tried to identify them and sort them by clothing, footwear and shoe size. According to him, the remains were "shuffled around like a construction set."

Another interviewee believes Russia is running out of money, and that this is why it's easier to register a person as missing in action, even if he died and is lying in a pit somewhere. If a commander is told from above not to recognize people as dead so as not to pay out, then, in his words, no one will recognize them. This is his interpretation, not a documented order.

The voice-over explains the legal side. A year after a soldier disappears, relatives can seek to have him declared dead and receive monetary compensation. The film mentions a woman whose husband was posthumously decorated and officially declared dead, although there was no body and no funeral. Without the compensation, she says, she couldn't have managed alone with two children.

Not everyone takes this path. One mother says people ask her why, since her son went missing a year ago, she doesn't go to court to have him declared dead. They tell her she'll get millions for it. She replies that she's willing to earn those millions herself and hand them over, if only they would give her son back. After that, she says, the people she's talking to fall silent, and she keeps searching as far as her means allow.

Families knock on every door: the unit where the missing man served, hospitals and other authorities. One woman says she sent around 200, maybe even 300, inquiries by email and by phone.

The journalist stresses that the women search for their loved ones alone. Those who agree to talk have already run up against the search system, and the system failed them. In his observation, they develop "a small seed of doubt" that things are not as they are being shown.

According to the filmmakers, the Russian side last published official casualty figures in September 2022. An independent count is kept by the outlet Mediazona and BBC Russian. The estimate cited in the film: about 352,000 dead and up to 180,000 missing in action, and including the wounded, the total exceeds one million. The filmmakers assert that no major power has suffered such losses in any conflict since the First World War.

According to the film, most Russian soldiers' bodies end up at one point on the map: the 522nd center in Rostov, about 60 km from the Ukrainian border. An eyewitness describes a line kilometers long, trailers and large army tents where the bodies lie. No one is allowed inside; it is "a completely separate territory." Vehicles with bodies drive through the gates one after another, and the gates, she says, don't have time to close: they bring in "countless" bodies.

One of the film's subjects is Veronika, a hairdresser from Rostov. Many families turn to her for help finding the missing. According to the filmmakers, it all began with a chance meeting. Veronika describes these people's state like this: everything inside them is being torn apart, it is a situation of utter hopelessness, and, it seems to her, there can be no worse psychological state for a person.

Every detail matters for identification: height, shoe size, the shape of the nose or ears, distinguishing marks. Veronika helps relatives fill out the morgue's identification form, attach photos and anything else that might help find a specific person among the nameless mass of bodies. On screen, relatives look through the images and repeat: "Not him. Not him."

Her work drew complaints. According to her, people told her she was profiting from it and disclosing classified information. She is baffled: what did she disclose, and to whom? A soldier's tattoo, to his mother.

For many families, hope remains that the missing man has been taken prisoner. The film shows videos of prisoners addressing their families. One says: "Hi, Yulia, my dear. I'm fine. I'm not missing in action, I'm not a 'five-hundred.' I'm being held in Ukrainian captivity." Another addresses his daughter: "It's your dad. I'm alive and well. I'm a prisoner."

At the end, we hear the voices of those for whom the war has already changed everything. One interviewee says he doesn't understand this policy: in his words, the war is "bought," it's about money and "money laundering." A woman says the family that existed before is gone: "I'm not the same. Everyone has become different." In her words, this war destroys not only soldiers but entire families. Her last words: "Don't go there."