Unidentified Russian fighter signals Ukrainian drone for help in footage

Footage from Ukraine shows a naked man kneeling in grass and holding a sign asking for help as a Ukrainian drone approaches, the New York Post reported. The man displays the English words “Please help me!” on a homemade sign. The account describes him as a Russian mercenary and characterizes his gesture as an apparent surrender.

The video shows the drone continuing across open terrain; it does not show what happened to the man afterward. The New York Post attributed the identification of the man as Pako Namogang, 25, to Ukrainian outlet Censor. Censor reported, according to the Post, that Namogang had been recruited through WhatsApp and sent into occupied Ukrainian territory after brief training.

The Post did not establish that the man shown in the footage is Namogang, so the reported identification and recruitment details cannot be tied to the person in the video on the information presented. The Post also relayed separate reporting about foreign nationals serving in Russian forces.

It said UA News reported that Ukrainian intelligence had identified two Cameroonian citizens killed after signing contracts to fight for Russia. The Post gave no names for those two people and described the deaths as occurring weeks after the contracts were signed.

In another case summarized by the Post, UA News reported that Ngulure Ibrahim Nkite, 23, arrived in Russia in February on a one-year contract, with a plan to serve as a rifleman in April. The outlet said he was killed weeks later in occupied Donetsk in May.

These details concern a separate reported case and do not establish the identity or fate of the man shown facing the drone. The Post further reported that Ukrainian military intelligence identified Jeric Jumadil Undol, 37, a Filipino national, as a mercenary killed in May in Donetsk, weeks after he signed a military contract.

That account, too, is separate from the drone footage. The accompanying UA.NEWS headline described video of an African mercenary in the Russian Armed Forces walking naked across a battlefield and pleading for help, but its headline alone does not identify the man or provide further details.

The New York Post’s account leaves the footage’s central outcome unresolved: it shows a plea and a drone’s approach, not what followed. Its additional cases describe reported recruitment and deaths of foreign nationals in Russian service, but do not document a direct connection between those cases and the person in the video.