The Occupant (Patreon)

Content Warning: The documentary The Occupant shows an uncensored view of war, and includes graphic scenes of combat. Some people may find this disturbing, particularly combat veterans. If you are a veteran and experiencing a mental health crisis, help is available at the Veterans Crisis Line website.

Lieutenant Shalaev Yury Vladimirovich is 23 years old and from the Russian city of Murmansk. He graduated from the Moscow Higher Military Command School, making him a Kremlovtsy. The military education program is five years long, and the school is considered prestigious.

Among its graduates - Ruslan Borysovych Khomchak, First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. Before Khomchak's appointment to the NSDCU, he was the Chief Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine through July of 2021.

Shalaev lives the life of many 21-year-olds and in a generation that loves to document every moment of their life. His cell phone contains the memories of what would be ordinary moments in time.

His graduation from the Moscow Higher Military Command School.

Giving his young daughter a bicycle with training wheels as a present, as his wife records.

Time with family.

Time with friends.

Time with family.

Recording the 0 to 100 kph time of a friend's vehicle.

Drinking, a lot of drinking. 

He is assigned to the 70th  Separate Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division, Motor Rifle Platoon Unit 71718, Southern Military District, Shali, Chechen Republic.

His camera recorded a conversation with a man in Chechen, who told him to just go home, and how the Russian military wasn't wanted there. 

In the months that lead up to March 2022, you learn what a beautiful country Russia is, how his life is not very different from other 20-somethings who probably have some - thrill issues.

His unit is deployed to Ukraine on March 3, 2022. They are sent to Donetsk. 

SIDEBAR: I may have only been a Civil Air Patrol cadet, but I was trained on flight line security and safety and worked the flight lines for air shows on military bases in the United States. I was cringing when they were loading up the helicopter.

His first combat deployment was to Olenivka, north of Mariupol, on March 19, 2022. On the same day, he gets his first look at the realities of combat. His unit is sent to Novomaiorske, on the front lines of where the Russian army is trying to secure the Donbas. His unit is suffering heavy losses. He complains that command doesn't know what to do. On March 22 or 23, he is in Heorhiivka, in the Luhansk Oblast. By March 29, the days have blended together.

He is now commanding a Russian BMP-3. They are in combat, and he is recording it.

They've been under fire for 3 hours.

A tank with his Battalion Tactical Group is destroyed in front of him.

The ballistic glass slits that he commands from are smeared with dirt.

The autocannon jams.

The recording stops.

When it restarts, the BMP-3 is in the background. It has been destroyed. There are parts of a person scattered across the ground, and he is behind enemy lines. He hides in a barn.

Days pass, and Ukrainian territorial guard patrols walk the street. They look as exhausted as Shalaev. He uses his phone as a telescope when one group stops and a person spends time kneeling on the road. He wonders what they are doing.

Lieutenant Shalaev Yury Vladimirovich was captured in early April, and along with it, his cell phone.

This is an important video to watch, and it is a commendable effort. A creator on TikTok I genuinely admire, Preston Stewart, recently made a video about the solemnness of war and how taking a life is serious business and something that should not be celebrated but respected.

This is a challenging concept for those who have never been under fire (including your author, who has only experienced less-lethal munitions and, in actual combat, would have been killed on August 16, 2020). But if you have combat veterans in your life, and they're willing to talk after time and perspective, many echo that view.

It is easy to write and read situation reports. It is easy to look at photos and videos of destroyed equipment. This isn't sympathy for the Russian army or Lieutenant Vladimirovich. This is one face, one person, in one moment in a war. 

I commend the Ukrainian government for producing this video and its portrayal of war. While Russia uses propaganda to demonize and dehumanize the Ukrainian people, in turn radicalizing 140 million people into believing genocide is justifiable, Ukraine put a very human face on their enemy.

If anything, this video demonstrates the values and the morals of a people and their leadership.

You should watch this video because this is reality. This is war.