BBCIn Western Ukraine, behind high walls and layers of locked gates, there is a camp full of men captured fighting for Russia.
Many of those crouching in the shade around the edges of the prison yard were recruited from big cities like St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, not far-flung and poorer regions like at the start of the full-scale invasion.
But not all the prisoners are Russian.
Amongst them are soldiers from Ukraine itself: the men who went to war with their own country.
But with no access to the military inside Russia, it is a chance to assess the dynamics of this war and explore what might motivate the men fighting it. That includes the Ukrainian-born soldiers, on Russia’s side.
We gave everyone the right to refuse an interview and spoke to those who agreed far away from any guards, and without cameras. As well as several formal interviews, I was able to talk to prisoners directly, in Russian, in several locations.
Anton was 10 when his part of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region was taken over by forces loyal to Moscow.
In 2022, when Vladimir Putin escalated to all-out war, he turned 18 and signed up to fight immediately – for Russia.
“I don’t regret my choice. I went to defend my land,” Anton insists and tells me his friends volunteered, too. “Then you get the SMS messages. Dead, dead, dead.”
Other prisoners say the same: that all those they went to war with have been killed.
They also say fewer people are volunteering to replace them, despite enormous sign-up fees, which suggests Putin’s desire to avoid mass mobilisation could soon be tested.
When Ukraine captures its own citizens on the battlefield, they are put on trial for treason.
But the men are then sent to PoW camps along with the Russians.
Officially, Kyiv still sees them as Ukrainian and treats Russia’s control of their regions as temporary. But the reality on the ground is more complex.
“They’re very pro-Russian, and their national identity is very blurred,” is how Petro Yatsenko from Ukraine’s coordination headquarters for PoWs puts it.
Anton certainly does not class himself as a traitor.
“I consider myself Russian. A country means nothing, it’s all about nationality. All my family are from Russia. All my roots are from there,” he says.
When we wonder about his Ukrainian surname, he brushes that off as irrelevant.
An entire generation born in Ukraine has now grown up under occupation, with Russian schooling and media fully controlled by the Kremlin. Both have portrayed the authorities in Kyiv as “Nazis” and illegitimate for many years.
Since the full-scale invasion, even more territory has been subjected to the same.
Anton has absorbed it all and now speaks almost entirely in Russian slogans.
He calls Putin “my President” and thinks he should push to take the rest of the Donbas, even though hundreds of thousands have already been killed trying.
“It’s a shame that people died, especially those who are innocent,” Anton says. “But war is war. It could have been ended. But no-one wanted to do that.”
In the prison hospital, Artyom lies in a corner bed, his body full of shrapnel. He had only been fighting for two months.
From Donetsk, like Anton, he also went to war willingly – not just for the cash.
“We have our own grudges,” Artyom says, recalling how his region came under heavy fire in 2014 as Ukrainian forces tried to stop it breaking away from Kyiv.
But his military experience has left him bitter. His commander was “bad” and he never got any of his 400,000 rouble (£3,470; $5,000) sign-up fee.
To add insult to Artyom’s many injuries, the wounded Russian soldier in the bed opposite was paid five times as much.
All the Ukrainian-born PoWs we interviewed came from areas occupied since 2014 and almost all joined the Russian army voluntarily.
But one man from Donetsk region told us he had been forced to fight.
His eyes darted around as he talked, unsure who he could trust.
One official tally, citing “intelligence”, suggests more than 50,000 Ukrainians have been conscripted against their will in occupied areas. Others put the figure far higher.
This man told us that when the Russians invaded, his family had stayed, not through any political or national allegiance but because Donetsk was their home.
Now, his only ambition was to get back to his wife and children, then avoid being returned to the front. “I’m just going to hide,” he confided.
Beneath the hospital windows and newly whitewashed walls there are rows of strawberries and cucumbers planted by the prisoners.
Further on, the stench of varnish from an outhouse is overpowering.
An official lifts a gold-coloured plastic handle from a bag near the door. “Guess what this is for?” he challenges us, grinning.
Inside, I do a double-take: the men working are hammering together wooden coffins. I am told the last contract the prison got was for garden sheds. This one feels macabre.
Across the courtyard in another workshop a handful of PoWs are making artificial Christmas trees, gaudy baubles strung from their machines. Like the coffin-makers, they tell me they use their wages to buy extra food and cigarettes.
Sergei was born in the Ukrainian city of Luhansk but says he is Russian like his parents, who moved to the Donbas when both countries were part of the Soviet Union.
He joined the Russian army a decade ago “to defend my homeland”, but claims he will retire when he gets back, not return to the front. “I’ve done my bit.”
Most will have no choice.
Stacking plastic branches next to Sergei is a drug dealer who signed up, like many, “exclusively” to avoid a long jail term.
“For me, 15 years in prison was too much,” Konstantin explains. “I know it probably doesn’t excuse me, but it’s a fact. I’m 44 now, I would be 60. So no.”
But Vshniki, or convict-soldiers, have to survive to the end of the war to be released and in the assault troops the odds are not good.
Three convicted murderers told us they had thought they could walk free after fighting for a year, only to have their contracts renewed automatically.
When I ask about killing their fellow countrymen on the battlefield, Sergei calls the question “provocative” and does not want to answer.
“I see nothing good in any war, and in a war like this there can be nothing good a priori,” Konstantin replies carefully. “I’m not saying we’re the same as Ukrainians, but we are close. We all have relatives there. This just isn’t good.”
He still thinks his decision to fight was right.
Neither he nor Sergei expect the war to end soon. Both believe Putin won’t stop until he controls the whole Donbas.
“But everyone I know there has had enough,” Konstantin says. “I just want this to be over, as soon as possible.”
At lunchtime, the prisoners in navy overalls file into the dining hall with heads bowed and hands clasped behind their backs.
As they eat – soup and stew – a video called Myths about Crimea plays on a loop, demolishing Russia’s claim to historic ownership of the peninsula that it stole from Ukraine in 2014, but no-one pays the slightest attention.
The re-education efforts feels half-hearted. For Kyiv, the real focus is on using these PoWs as swaps to bring its own soldiers home. But when it comes to negotiating exchange lists, it turns out the men from the Donbas are a low priority for Russia.
“Only a dozen or so have been transferred this year,” Konstantin complains. “It seems like they don’t want to exchange us. I think we will be the last to go.”
Additional reporting by Anastasia Levchenko
Get our flagship newsletter with all the headlines you need to start the day. Sign up here.
