The soldier has received a leg injury during clashes near Slovyansk and was told by the command to hide in a dugout. Grachev was told that he would be evacuated later as he was unable to walk.
"I have spent two months in the dugout on my own; I was provided with water and food by passing Ukrainian military units, so I told them, ‘Help me,’ they said, ‘They told you to lie down,’ so no one took me away," Grachev said.
Some Russian military personnel have patched him up, and on October 15, Russian doctors carried out a surgery on Grachev in Lugansk.
"I am recovering, everything is fine. I am incredibly grateful that they saved me. The doctors said that I could have lost my leg," Grachev said.
Grachev, born in 1982 in the Zaporozhye Region, was conscripted in late October 2023. From February to July, he had been fighting on the Belgorod Region’s border. The man suffered injury after a drone attack in late July, whereafter his subunit sheltered in a dugout and received an order to retreat.