A signals officer with access to the front

Lev Stupnikov, a 26-year-old Russian lieutenant, trained at the Budyonny military academy's signals corps and was named head of communications for a battalion assigned to take Vuhledar, a key stronghold in Ukraine's Donbas region. His job was to keep commanders in contact with their units and make sure they received data from surveillance systems. According to the Wall Street Journal, he instead passed Ukrainian military intelligence precise details of Russian positions and planned movements, along with troop locations, radio frequencies and battle plans. His post also gave him access to drone reconnaissance footage and surveillance camera images. The paper reports that he switched off cameras watching Ukrainian territory.

The February 2024 strike

In February 2024, he reportedly went to a field near Vuhledar where Russian soldiers were preparing an assault and senior officers were watching their drills. He photographed the gathering and sent Ukrainian intelligence a message saying there must be between 120 and 150 people present, then passed on the coordinates. Pretending to have stomach cramps, he withdrew toward nearby trees shortly before the missiles arrived. The WSJ reports that the strike killed 68 people and wounded 60, and Il Messaggero names colonel Gusein Musayev among the dead, a commander Kyiv was said to have considered one of its main targets.

Killed68

Wounded60

Killed

68 people

Wounded

60 people

Data from the article text

The WSJ says his later information was used in a series of further attacks that killed more than 300 Russian soldiers. Il Messaggero repeats that figure while describing him as a key saboteur who passed the plans and positions of Russian troops to Kyiv.

Why he turned against his army

His disillusionment, according to the WSJ, had built for years before the war. At 17 he was refused a place at a pilots' school because he would not pay a bribe, and cadets at his military academy in Saint Petersburg had to pay for leave, for leaving the grounds and for choosing where they served. He had wanted to become a fitness instructor, but the full-scale invasion of Ukraine ended that plan. The images of bombs falling on cities horrified him, and the brutal behaviour of colleagues in his unit, many of them released prisoners, deepened his opposition. His mother Tatiana, an open critic of Vladimir Putin, contacted Dmytro Karpenko, a Ukrainian IT specialist working with military intelligence who posted talks with Russian prisoners on YouTube and offered money and help to defect. Stupnikov reportedly refused any payment. Il Messaggero adds that his wife later accused him of betraying his country and their marriage.

Escape across the front line

After one attack, Russian security services checked soldiers' phones and began suspecting an informant in the unit, but Stupnikov managed to hide the device he used to contact Ukrainians. In July 2024 his escape was prepared, with the route set in advance and followed by a drone operator. He left the Russian positions at night and walked toward Ukrainian soldiers, and the crossing took about 40 minutes, according to NDTV. When he reached positions of Ukraine's 72nd Brigade, soldiers aimed weapons at him and demanded a password. He gave the agreed reply and was taken into Ukrainian custody. He handed over a phone holding access codes to Russian communication channels, which Mediazona says allowed Ukrainians to keep monitoring those channels for several more months.

Where he stands now

According to the WSJ, Stupnikov now fights for Ukraine in the Russian Volunteer Corps, a unit of the Ukrainian army made up of Russians opposed to Putin. The paper calls him one of the most significant saboteurs in recent military history. The figures in this account, including the death tolls and the 300 soldiers, come from the WSJ report as carried by Polish and Italian outlets on 16 and 17 October 2026, and they have not been confirmed independently in the source articles.