A harrowing video emerging from Ukrainian captivity has exposed the harsh and decaying reality of life in Russia, far from the polished illusions of Kremlin propaganda. In the video, Ukrainian soldiers allow a captured Russian serviceman to phone his wife. What unfolds is a deeply emotional and devastating exchange that has gripped audiences across Eastern Europe.
The woman, clearly inebriated and visibly shaken, sits in a collapsing home, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette—a stark indicator of extreme poverty. She speaks through grief and confusion, revealing that her brother has been killed in the war against Ukraine, and two close friends have also died recently. The house behind her is in ruins, with a broken stove and signs of long-term neglect. “My brother was killed, Tanya died, Lenka died…” she says quietly. Her words are muffled by despair. Her husband pleads with her to “just wait… don’t drink.”
This distressing moment is not just a private tragedy. It is a grim snapshot of the widespread collapse across Russia’s interior regions, especially in rural areas, where poverty, hopelessness and alcoholism have taken firm root. This decline continues as the Kremlin channels enormous national resources into its military aggression abroad.
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has been boasting publicly about the recruitment of 50,000 to 60,000 so-called “volunteers” each month into the Russian armed forces. While presented as a patriotic surge, this mass military conscription is stripping Russia’s already strained labour market of its able-bodied working population. These tens of thousands of individuals, instead of contributing to economic growth, education or healthcare, are being funnelled into dead end military roles, many of which end in death or permanent injury.
This dramatic diversion of human capital is unsustainable for any country. Russia’s long neglected rural infrastructure and industries are suffering even more acutely as working age men are removed from farms, factories, and transport networks to serve in Putin’s war. These losses further accelerate the decay of entire communities, leaving behind elderly, vulnerable, and broken families.
The Russian state has long abandoned its people, but the scale of the neglect is now undeniable. Putin’s obsession with military dominance is not only destroying Ukraine, but cannibalising his own country from within. The very citizens he claims to protect are dying in trenches or drinking themselves to death in ruined homes.
What began as an imperial fantasy is now a multi layered human catastrophe. While the Kremlin clings to its delusions of global power, its citizens are begging for cigarettes, mourning their dead, and watching their homes fall to pieces.
Russian propaganda continues to promote the illusion of national greatness with symbols like the “Z” and false narratives of Western threats. But the real story is told by the ruined lives of Russian families. Putin’s regime, addicted to imperialist warfare, has chosen tanks over toilets, missiles over medicine, and conquest over compassion. The cost is not only Ukrainian lives but also the complete breakdown of life for ordinary Russians.
The woman in the video is not an isolated case. She is part of a much larger Russian reality where health care is crumbling, unemployment is widespread, and despair is as common as the propaganda on state television. Her only message to her husband is to wait and to try not to drink himself to death
