Russian lieutenant leaks coordinates, enabling Ukraine to kill hundreds of Russian troops

After graduating from a St. Petersburg military academy, Lt. Lev Stupnikov was assigned to the 36th Motorized Rifle Brigade on the front near Vuhledar. In February 2024 he started transmitting exact troop positions to a Ukrainian intelligence contact, a process facilitated by his mother Tatiana Yantsen’s outreach to programmer Dmytro Karpenko. The first coordinated strike killed 68 Russian soldiers and wounded 60, including Colonel Gusein Musayev.

Over the following months Stupnikov’s intel enabled further attacks that killed over 300 Russian personnel. Growing internal suspicion forced him to hide his phone and eventually flee the brigade, crossing into Ukrainian-held territory with the help of the Ukrainian 72nd Brigade. He was later recruited by Denis Kapustin’s Russian Volunteer Corps, a unit of Russian defectors fighting alongside Ukraine, while his wife Liza remained in Russia and his family sought refuge in Moldova.