He was missing part of his arm. Russia sent him into battle anyway.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.An ex-convict who is missing part of his right arm and has two titanium plates in his head, Vyacheslav Kudryashev might not seem like the best soldier to put in the vanguard of a military offensive.But for four days last year, he was at the tip of Russia’s spear, trying to pierce Ukraine’s defenses in the kind of infantry assault that is yielding meager gains and heavy losses for Russian troops.After more than four years of war, Russian President Vladimir Putin is far from achieving his goal of dominating Ukraine and facing mounting criticism at home. Russian forces are struggling to advance on the battlefield despite some 25,000 wounded and dead a month, say Western officials and military analysts.

Russia’s halting progress suggests that taking the coveted eastern Donbas province could take years—and cost hundreds of thousands of lives.Kudryashev said a commander dispatched him and another foot soldier with the goal of reaching a point in a forest near Kreminna in eastern Ukraine. Their task was to survive long enough for others to join them and drag the Russian front line forward a few dozen more yards.Things soon went wrong.

Kudryashev lost his radio as he sought to evade Ukrainian explosive drones. Unsure of his location and with no contact with his unit, he stayed there with his comrade until Ukrainian troops found them and took them captive.“The Ukrainians could have killed us right there—no one would have known we were dead,” said Kudryashev, who is now in a Ukrainian prisoner-of-war camp, where he spoke with The Wall Street Journal.He spent 18 months recovering in 2023 after a Ukrainian tank round hit a garage where he was preparing mortar shells, flinging him against a wall and