Former prisoner Yevgeny Trushkov, who testified against political prisoner Azat Mifkhatov, who was sitting with him, died in the war back in July 2025. His death was confirmed by his ex-wife Ksenia in a conversation with ASTRA.
On October 9, 2025, Z-volunteer Ekaterina Lymarenko published his deathbed message. Trushkov, who served in the 137th brigade, said that the commander of company V “Jan” gave orders to kill subordinates. Because of this, he ran away from the service.
“I know about many violations, people were killed. I know the cases, I know where the bodies are buried. And specifically, the order came for me to be killed so that I would not leave the fighting position. They told me not to come out. For this reason, I left the position. I want to return, but to a different unit. I am ready to serve and perform combat missions,” he said.
According to him, this is the second time he became deserter. After the first escape, he was caught and severely beaten, and then put in a pit. From there, he was sent on a mission in handcuffs — the man showed traces of them on his wrists.
Lymarenko recorded a video with a serviceman on July 1, 2025, when he was on the run. The very next day, Trushkov sent her the last audio recording, “in which he asks to publish the video, informs her that he is unlikely to return, and the sounds of gunfire are very close.”
“I can’t bring charges, it’s quite possible the guys died in a fair fight, but I repeat, I couldn’t find out anything about their fate, no matter how hard I tried to come to the unit. They may be prisoners, and there may be a lot of terrible things in their behavior, but that doesn’t mean they can be killed,” she wrote.
Lymarenko added that she was aware of another soldier who also died “under strange circumstances,” but declined to give his name because he had not asked for it. The volunteer also wrote that she posted the video only 3 months later, as requested by Trushkov himself.
Lymarenko did not comment to ASTRA, specifying that the purpose of the publication was for the prosecutor’s office to “deal with this.”
Evgeny Trushkov was friends with the imprisoned mathematician Azat Miftakhov in IK-17. Shortly before the release of the political prisoner in the first criminal case, Trushkov testified against him, according to which Miftakhov was sentenced to another 4 years.
Trushkov tried to leave for the war with Ukraine back in 2022, but because of his conviction for gang rape, he was not accepted into the Wagner PMC. Mediazona noted that one of the conditions under which he agreed to arrange for a friend was to be sent to the front.
