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Akbar Novruz

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The adopted great-grandson of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Anton Milaev, has revealed that he was captured while fighting for Russia in Ukraine after joining the military for financial reasons, AzerNEWS reports.

According to an interview published on July 6 by the Ukrainian "Khochu Zhit" ("I Want to Live") project, which encourages Russian soldiers to surrender, the 45-year-old was taken prisoner in the spring of 2026 after spending about two months on the front line.

Milaev is the biological grandson of Soviet circus performer Yevgeny Milaev, the first husband of Galina Brezhneva, Leonid Brezhnev's daughter. Russian Telegram channel Baza had previously reported his capture, citing his mother, who said Galina Brezhneva had raised him "like her own."

In the interview, Milaev said he had long distanced himself from his connection to the former Soviet leader.

"I always preferred to be an ordinary person," he said.

He also revealed that he lived in the United States for 19 years after moving there in the 1990s, working various low-skilled jobs before returning to Russia in the mid-2010s.

"I got tired of living there and working for the Masons," Milaev claimed, while expressing nostalgia for the Soviet Union.

"There was a country then, and now there's chaos," he added.

Before joining the military, Milaev worked as a truck driver in Moscow. He said he enlisted in 2025 primarily to repay a debt of one million rubles. After signing a contract in the Kostroma region, he received a payment of 1.4 million rubles.

According to Milaev, he expected to serve as a military driver but was instead assigned to an assault unit despite having no previous military experience. He underwent just three weeks of training in occupied Ukraine's Luhansk region before being deployed to the front.

Reflecting on his experience, Milaev said he had initially believed official Russian claims about fighting "Nazis" in Ukraine but changed his views after arriving at the battlefield.

"I think that to change your mind about this war, everyone needs to be here," he said.

Leonid Brezhnev, who led the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, was born in what is now the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. During World War II, he served as a political officer and participated in operations that led to the liberation of several Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Lviv, Mukachevo and Uzhhorod.