fight

Gemma Collins has doubled down on her opinion that David Haye and Jimmy Bullard’s behaviour was ‘disgusting’ in the live I’m A Celebrity final, which crowned Adam Thomas as Jungle Legend

The I’m A Celebrity fallout continues and Gemma Collins isn’t prepared to let it lie. The former Towie favourite is very much Team Adam in the feud between Adam Thomas, David Haye and Jimmy Bullard.

And she has once again hit out at the former sports stars, doubling down that their behaviour in the live final was “disgusting”. The GC reposted claims the duo had been kicked out of the live show and again took aim at the pair.

Referencing the alleged kicking out Gemma wrote: “Good job!” She went on: “Behaviour [sic] was disgusting for rest of cast the right move was made as we all felt so uncomfortable.”

READ MORE: Ex I’m A Celebrity star Anne Hegerty has damning two words for David HayeREAD MORE: I’m A Celebrity’s Anne Hegerty shares telling message to Jimmy Bullard amid brutal fall out

The words echoed Gemma’s statement a day earlier as she once again raged at the pair’s antics. While Jimmy called Adam’s behaviour “intimidating” after the former Fulham player’s decision to quit the show almost cost Adam his place, David has been labelled a “bully”.

David admitted in his exit chat he may have taken the “banter” too far, but Adam says he actions left him “broken”. And Gemma firmly stuck up for her soap star pal.

And after the live show, she shared a clip of her and step-son Tristan cuddling in. She said: “Good morning Tristan, we loved the I’m A Celebrity final last night but we were very upset wasn’t we? Tell everyone why we were upset.”

Tristan then said: “Because someone was bullying Adam.” Gemma went on: “And it was hard to see wasn’t it?. And did it ruin our night? Upset us very much? And what has it taught us in life?

Tristan continued: “Never bully.” As she spoke to her fans, Gemma added: “Adam, it was really difficult to sit there and watch you go through that last night. It was disgusting. And what a shame because we all…I mean the jealousy is real.”

During the live show, Gemma stormed off stage as the heated arguments took place. Ant McPartlin, who initially had tried chatting to the trio about the events, even appeared agitated with how things were playing out.

Body language expert, Judi James, told the Mirror: “You could see the rigid, unhappy and blank poker faces of Gemma [Collins], Scarlett [Moffatt] and Ashley [Roberts] as the lead men continued to steal the spotlight by continuing their arguments during the live final. Gemma, Scarlett and Ashley looked drained and resigned here while the battle for screen time raged about them.”

She added: “When Gemma walked, Ant reached peak anger signals. Dec stopped mirroring him here and it was Ant taking total control as authoritative leader.

“His angry stare suggested this was not an act for the camera, and he stabbed both hands onto his own chest in a gesture that signalled he was in charge before engaging in a pointed finger ‘duel’ with Jimmy. There was one final, stabbing point gesture from Ant that should have warned Jimmy that he needed to stop.”

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LOGAN, Utah — President Trump’s administration took the unusual step this week of sending a government plane to Cuba to return a 10-year-old from Utah who is at the center of a complicated and contentious custody fight involving the child’s gender identity.

The child’s parent, Rose Inessa-Ethington, a transgender woman, is accused of taking the child to Cuba without the permission of the biological mother. Federal and state authorities sought the return of the child after a family member expressed concern that Inessa-Ethington went to Havana to get the child gender transition surgery.

Inessa-Ethington, who had run a popular Utah political blog in the 2010s, was arrested along with her partner, Blue Inessa-Ethington, and charged in the U.S. with international parental kidnapping.

The couple traveled with the child to Canada ostensibly for a camping trip in late March with Blue’s 3-year-old child. However, the two adults turned off their phones after telling the older child’s mother they had arrived in Canada. They flew from Vancouver to Mexico and then to Cuba on April 1, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in federal court in Utah.

The charges don’t say if the couple actually planned on getting the child gender-affirming surgery in Cuba or how they would get it because that surgery isn’t legal for children in Cuba.

The FBI said that Blue Inessa-Ethington withdrew $10,000 from her checking account before leaving. Agents also found at their home a note with instructions from a mental health therapist in Washington, D.C., “to send the therapist the $10,000.00 and instructions on gender affirming medical care for children.” That note didn’t mention Cuba.

The use of the Department of Justice plane in a parental kidnapping investigation comes after the Trump administration sought to block access to gender-affirming care for minors and pressured healthcare providers over the issue.

The Associated Press left telephone and email messages with the court-appointed attorneys who represented Blue and Rose Inessa-Ethington in Virginia. The defendants will be returned to Utah to face one count each of international parental kidnapping, according to court filings.

Search began after child wasn’t returned as scheduled

The search for the child began on April 3 when they were not returned to the mother in Utah as scheduled, court documents show.

The 10-year-old’s mother, who was divorced from Rose Inessa-Ethington and had shared custody of the child, filed a missing-person report with police in Logan, Utah, a college and dairy farming town about 70 miles north of Salt Lake City.

Logan City Police Chief Jeff Simmons said his department’s initial focus was on the custodial interference allegations in the case, and he said investigators did not learn until later about concerns over gender-affirming surgery.

Logan police spokesperson Sgt. Brandon Bevan said those concerns were raised by one family member. He declined to say who.

“They just had the concern about it, no actual physical evidence,” Bevan said.

A Utah state judge ordered the return of the 10-year-old to the child’s mother on April 13. Three days later, a federal magistrate judge issued an arrest warrant for the Inessa-Ethingtons. On the same day, Cuban law enforcement located the group. They were deported to the U.S. aboard the government plane Monday and arraigned in federal court in Richmond, Va.

The 10-year-old was returned to the child’s biological mother, First Assistant U.S. Atty. Melissa Holyoak in Utah indicated in a statement. Representatives of the FBI and U.S. attorneys office in Utah declined to say what happened to the 3-year-old child who had been with the group.

Parents engaged in custody dispute

The custody dispute between the parents does not appear to be a new development. An online fundraiser created five years go by Blue Inessa-Ethington titled “Help a Trans Mother Keep Custody of Her Child” raised $9,766.

“Last week, Rose’s ex relocated several counties away, negatively impacting Rose’s parent-time with the child,” she wrote on the fundraising page. She said the money would be used to seek a court order that would keep the child “safe and stable throughout this process.”

Anyone who has spent time with Rose knows “how much care and thought she puts into parenting her gender open child,” she wrote.

Family members said the child was assigned male at birth but identifies as a girl because of what they believed to be “manipulation” by Rose Inessa-Ethington, according to an April 16 affidavit from FBI Special Agent Jennifer Waterfield.

Gender-affirming care for minors has been limited

The Trump administration moved in December to cut off gender-affirming care for minors, prompting a third of states to sue.

It was the latest in a series of clashes between an administration that says transgender healthcare can be harmful to children and advocates who say it’s medically necessary.

Gender-affirming surgery is rare among U.S. children, research shows. Guidance from several major medical organizations calls for caution around surgery for minors and says decisions about treatments are case-by-case. Fewer than 1 in 1,000 U.S. adolescents receive gender-affirming medications, such as hormones or puberty blockers.

In Cuba, gender-affirming surgeries are banned for minors and performed only for adults through the public health system under strict supervision in designated public hospitals for Cuban citizens. They must be authorized by a medical commission after a comprehensive review of the patient’s file. That process often takes years because it requires a wide range of medical and psychological evaluations.

Brown, Boone and Schoenbaum write for the Associated Press. Brown reported from Billings, Mont., and Boone from Boise, Idaho. AP journalists Eric Tucker in Washington, Cristiana Mesquita in Havana and Devi Shastri in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

California’s trial attorneys and Uber — longtime courtroom foes — are officially bringing their fight to the November ballot.

A coalition of lawyers and advocates announced Thursday that it has gathered enough signatures to ask voters to support a “first in the nation” law that would make rideshare companies legally responsible for sexual assaults that happen to a driver or customer during a trip. Uber has argued it’s not liable for assaults committed by drivers, who are considered independent contractors.

“We must hold Uber accountable today,” said Danielle Tudahl, who recounted being sexually harassed and chased by an Uber driver after ordering a ride through the app, at a Sacramento news conference. “Californians are finally demanding action to try and close some of these gaps and put people’s safety over corporate profits.”

Uber has described the ballot measure, which is sponsored by the Consumer Attorneys of California, or CAOC, as retaliation for its own November ballot push to cap how much attorneys can earn in car crash cases in California.

“This ballot measure is a cynical ploy by billboard lawyers,” said Nathan Click, a spokesperson for A More Affordable California, an Uber-backed coalition. “CAOC didn’t spend millions to put this on the ballot to protect survivors — their goal is protecting billboard lawyer profits.”

The coalition that supports Uber announced last week it had gathered enough signatures for a measure that would cap attorney fees for car crash cases at 25%, among other changes.

Uber says its ballot measure will give victims a larger cut of their settlement money, rather than the payout getting siphoned off primarily to attorneys and doctors. Attorneys fire back that it will leave thousands of people with small or thorny cases without a lawyer because they won’t have financial incentive to sue.

Both sides are gearing up for an expensive fight. Uber has given more than $77 million. The Alliance Against Corporate Abuse, the CAOC-backed coalition pushing the sexual assault measure, has raised more than $68 million from law firms across the state, according to campaign finance records.

The money has helped pay for billboards that have sprouted across L.A. informing drivers that, according to the New York Times, Uber received a report of sexual assault or misconduct every eight minutes on average between 2017 and 2022. The company was the subject of a series of investigations by the paper into sexual assault by drivers. The company says it has invested billions in keeping riders safe and has “done more than any other company to confront” sexual violence.

The proposed sexual assault measure would require ride-share companies to let riders know if the person picking them up has a history of sexual misconduct and conduct yearly fingerprint and background checks for drivers.

The company is currently fighting more than 3,000 lawsuits from passengers who claim they were sexually assaulted or harassed by Uber drivers. Those cases are being coordinated by a federal judge in California.

The attorney coalition had also pushed an initiative aimed at nullifying Uber’s fee-capping measure if it passed. Alex Stack, a spokesperson for the campaign, said they were “pausing/withdrawing” the measure to “focus the fight on our sexual assault prevention measure and beating Uber’s initiative.”

Xavier Becerra needed to land a knockout punch, even more so than the five other candidates for California governor he was facing at Wednesday night’s debate.

Instead, he fired off some slaps.

He needed to roar about his many accomplishments in his 35-year career in Sacramento and Washington, to distinguish himself from the relative political neophytes around him.

Instead, Becerra recited his resume with the vigor of someone rattling off his LinkedIn page.

He needed to uplift Californians with a vision of hope, when many feel the state is going in the wrong direction.

Instead, he offered the oratory equivalent of a pat on the shoulder.

No candidate had more at stake that night than Becerra, who went from an afterthought to a contender after Eric Swalwell dropped out and resigned his congressional seat over sexual assault allegations.

Five weeks ago, Becerra and other candidates of color were protesting their exclusion from a USC debate because they were all polling so low. Now, the 68-year-old has a chance to become California’s first Latino governor.

This possibility seems to have uncorked California’s silent majority — the rancho libertarians turned off by hard-right politics but also the wokoso politics they feel have left them behind. The people who yearn for an unglamorous, competent leader after eight years of all-about-me Gavin Newsom and a decade of Donald Trump.

Becerra’s campaign, once as rudderless as a leaf in a river in a race so chaotic for Democrats that many feared two Republicans would win on June 2 and face each other in the general election, suddenly latched onto a palpable wave.

At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books last weekend, I saw people sporting Becerra campaign buttons who had just come from a rally that was expected to draw a few hundred but instead had over 2,000 RSVPs. On social media, friends who had never especially cared for state politics suddenly declared they were for Becerra and fought off their more lefty pals who think he’s a Latino Ned Flanders not up for this fraught moment.

Unglamorous and competent are Becerra’s middle names, and they were on display at the debate — for better and mostly worse. This was his chance to show both his new followers and undecided voters that they could trust him as California’s next governor.

But where he needed to be limber like a prizefighter, the former California attorney general was as tightly wound as a Rolex.

While the other candidates pressed their palms against the podiums, ready to pounce on every question, Becerra clasped his hands like an altar boy. When he did gesture, his movements never went further than the span of his shoulders.

As the others grinned and grimaced at their rivals’ responses, Becerra was as stone-faced as Buster Keaton. He stumbled more than he should have — how could someone in his position mistake Iraq for Iran when criticizing Trump’s Middle East quagmire? — and rarely seemed at ease, as if the weight of the moment and the good luck of his surge had suddenly hit him at the worst possible time.

Candidates in California’s gubernatorial race, from left, Matt Mahan, Xavier Becerra, Chad Bianco, and Steve Hilton look on during a debate Wednesday, April 22, 2026, in San Francisco.

(Jason Henry / Associated Press)

Becerra’s supporters say a level-headed leader is what California needs. But voters almost never go for what they need — they pick what they want. And California wants someone who’s loud, or at least louder than Becerra. There’s a reason why strident partisans like Republicans Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton and progressives Tom Steyer and Katie Porter have consistently placed high in the polls, while moderates like Becerra, his frenemy Antonio Villaraigosa and San Jose mayor Matt Mahan have lagged.

The weird thing is that Becerra does know how to brawl. Wallflowers don’t go from a working class Mexican immigrant family to Stanford Law School. Wimps don’t survive the ruthlessness of Eastside politics as an outsider to become a congressmember at just 34. Cowards don’t file over 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration as California’s top prosecutor or tackle the coronavirus pandemic as President Biden’s health secretary.

I’ve only encountered the Sacramento native a few times but always came away impressed. In small crowds, he makes people laugh and tear up. He’s quick with ripostes, righteous in off-the-cuff remarks and has a do-gooder aura that never comes off as sanctimonious.

We saw hints of that Becerra at the debate. To Hilton, he quipped, “You can be a talking head and not worry about the consequences of what you do” after the former Fox News host babbled on about how one-party ruled had failed California.

After Porter accused him of not offering hard numbers for his economic plans, Becerra responded that he has balanced federal budgets larger than California’s. “It’s easy to say you haven’t done this; it’s easier to prove that you actually have,” he concluded.

But after Becerra described the evils of racial profiling by law enforcement and Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, ranted that California politicians need to stop thinking so much about race, it was Porter who responded with a verbal haymaker as Becerra silently looked on.

You don’t fight as a choirboy in a battle royale. Becerra wasn’t bad at the debate but he also wasn’t great — and that won’t win this race.

Voters want someone who’ll do the job, yes — especially if it comes with no drama. They also want to elect someone they think is a human, not a joyless bureaucrat. So how did Becerra respond to the debate’s last question about what was the last series you’ve streamed?

Becerra flashed his biggest smile of the night. It was such a softball query that even a kindergartener could have slammed it à la Shohei Ohtani.

“I wish I could tell you I had time to watch streaming shows,” he replied.

Dude. We’re all overworked, but everyone I know unwinds by watching mindless drivel (my current obsession is “Vanderpump Villa”). We all need to relax, even for a moment. As my dad says when he sees me filing one columna after another and urges me to take a break, “El trabajo nunca se acaba pero uno sí se acaba.”

Work never ends, but people do.

Xavier, you know you’re on the wrong side of California when the only other candidate with a similar answer was Bianco, who said he doesn’t watch television at all.

Being careful has served you well, but this is the greatest opportunity of your life. You don’t have to suddenly become a flamethrower, but some sparks would help. It’s six weeks until the primary, so time to throw down — channel your inner cholo and go get what should be yours.

Workers from two regional parties in India have been fighting on election day for West Bengal’s state assembly. Local media reported the fighting broke out as opposition party leaders accused the state ruling party of voter intimidation.

Every year when the fixtures are announced you hear the familiar refrain that “it doesn’t matter, you play everyone twice”.

But there is no doubt that when you face a certain team can make a big difference across a 10-month campaign.

With five games remaining Spurs will definitely think their run-in, at least on paper, gives them every chance of staying up.

Next up is a trip to Wolves, whose relegation to the Championship was confirmed on Monday.

A home match against Leeds on 11 May is another Tottenham will view as an opportunity, especially if Farke’s side have ensured their safety by then.

Even a tricky-looking match at Champions League-chasing Aston Villa on 3 May comes at a good time for Spurs, as it falls between the two legs of the Europa League semi-final for Unai Emery’s men.

A visit to rivals Chelsea before hosting Everton on the final day is not a straightforward way to finish, given both teams seem likely to be fighting for European places.

But, given how tight things are, that is something all the relegation candidates will have to deal with.

West Ham host Everton on Saturday before an away game at Brentford – and it only gets tougher with title-chasing Arsenal the visitors to London Stadium on 10 May.

Even with Newcastle enduring a disappointing season, an away game at St James’ Park on the penultimate weekend is far from simple and there could be plenty riding on the home match against Leeds on the last day.

Forest arguably face the toughest last five with away games at Chelsea and Manchester United in May – the former coming just three days before the second leg of the Reds’ Europa League semi-final against Villa.

Home games against Newcastle and Bournemouth, on the last day, could be crucial but getting a result at Sunderland on Friday would help alleviate a lot of stress for Vitor Pereira’s side before the remainder of the run-in.

STEFON Diggs’ legal fight with his sex assault accuser took a dramatic twist after bombshell new files were dropped.

In explosive documents obtained by The U.S. Sun, Christopher Griffith appears to blame Stefon’s break-up with Cardi B for ruining his NFL career.

He shot back in their legal war after Stefon sued the social media star for defamation over claims the axed New England Patriots player had sexually assaulted him.

The influencer made several posts alleging Stefon had attacked him after a celebrity basketball game in Maryland in May 2023.

In his suit, Stefon claimed that his reputation and, therefore, his income, had been damaged by Christopher’s allegations.

The influencer shot back and said Stefon ruined his reputation himself in several ways, including through his relationship with his on-again, off-again girlfriend and baby mama, Cardi B.

“There is a significant unresolved question as to whether Mr. Diggs’s claimed emotional distress was caused by sources other than Mr. Griffith’s posts on Instagram,” the influencer wrote in the filing.

The social media star then appeared to blame Stefon’s breakup from Cardi B for ruining his reputation and NFL career.

“During the period in question, Mr. Diggs very publicly started and ended a relationship with the musical artist Cardi B, with Mr. Diggs painted as a villain in the tabloid press,” the eyebrow-raising filing continued – and it didn’t stop there.

He also called out another headline-grabbing incident.

“Mr. Diggs was captured on video distributing an unidentified crystalline substance to women partying with him on a yacht, again widely disseminated by the tabloid press; and his performance as an NFL wide receiver declined materially,” he continued, referring to May 2025 photos of Stefon partying on a yacht with bikini-clad women in Miami.

“Any of these could independently account for reputational harm, emotional distress, or lost business relationships. 

The U.S. Sun has reached out to Cardi B’s team for comment.

Christopher claimed his discovery requests thus far have been met with inadequate responses by Stefon and his legal team. 

He also claimed Stefon, 32, has not been forthcoming with providing information on the loss of brand deals as a result of the allegations against him, specifically with the footwear brand UGG.

Outside of this federal lawsuit, Stefon is connected to another lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by Chistopher against the NFL star’s brother, Darez Diggs.

Christopher claimed that about a week after the alleged sexual assault by Stefon in Maryland in 2023, the NFL star’s brother Darez and associates came to his Los Angeles apartment building, beat him up and robbed him of about $100,000 in jewelry and other property. 

That lawsuit is also ongoing. 

Kharkiv, Ukraine – Hushruzjon Salohidinov, 26, was working as a courier in Saint Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city and President Vladimir Putin’s hometown.

But last year, the Tajik man and practising Muslim says he was arrested while picking up a parcel which police claimed contained money stolen from elderly women.

Salohidinov says he never interacted with the alleged criminals, but nevertheless spent nine months in the Kresty-2 pre-trial detention centre about 32km (20 miles) from the city, while a judge refused to start his trial because of the “weak evidence” against him.

But instead of releasing him after that, prison wardens threatened to place him in a cell with HIV-infected inmates who, they said, would gang-rape him – unless he “volunteered” to fight in Ukraine.

“They said, ‘Oh, you’ll put on a skirt now, you’ll be raped,’” Salohidinov, who has raven black hair and a messy full beard, told Al Jazeera at a centre for war prisoners in northeastern Ukraine, where he is now being held, having been captured in January this year by Ukrainian forces.

Using a carrot-and-stick tactic, the wardens also promised him a sign-up bonus of 2 million rubles ($26,200), a monthly salary of 200,000 rubles ($2,620) and an amnesty from all convictions.

So, in the autumn of 2025, Salohidinov signed up as he “saw no other way out”.

Officials in Kresty-2, St Petersburg’s prosecutors’ office and Russia’s Ministry of Defence did not respond to any of Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.

‘Catching migrants’

Salohidinov is just one of tens of thousands of labour migrants from Central Asia coerced by Russia to become soldiers as part of the Kremlin’s nationwide campaign, according to human rights groups, media reports and Russian officials.

Hochu Jit, a Ukrainian group that helps Russian soldiers surrender, has published verified lists of thousands of Central Asian soldiers like Salohidinov.

“They are literally sent to be killed, no one considers them soldiers that need to be saved,” the group wrote in a 2025 post on Telegram. These soldiers’ life expectancy on the front line is about four months. “Losses among them are catastrophic,” the group reported.

With its low birthrate and large oil wealth, Russia has for years been a magnet for millions of labour migrants from ex-Soviet Central Asia, especially Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The campaign by the Kremlin to force Central Asians to fight in Ukraine dates back to 2023 – the year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – when police began rounding up anyone who didn’t look Slavic and charging them with real or imagined transgressions such as a lack of registration, expired or “fake” permits or blurred stamps on their documents. Sometimes, migrants are simply bused straight to conscription offices.

In 2025, Al Jazeera interviewed another Tajik man who said he had been detained with an expired work permit and was then tortured into “volunteering” while being subjected to countless xenophobic and Islamophobic slurs from his officers.

Migrants say they are abused, tortured and threatened with jail or having their entire families deported.

“The main way of recruiting as many migrants as possible is pressure on them with threats of deportation,” Alisher Ilkhamov, the Uzbekistan-born head of the London-based Central Asia Due Diligence think tank, told Al Jazeera.

Sometimes, migrants are simply duped.

Salohidinov said one serviceman in his squad was an Uzbek who “didn’t speak a word of Russian” and was fooled into “volunteering” while signing papers at a migration centre.

In their reports about “catching” migrants, officials frequently use derogatory terms about them, and also when they describe men who have obtained Russian passports but skipped registration at conscription offices. Since the Soviet era, such registration has been obligatory for all men and, since 2024, a newly naturalised Russian national can lose his citizenship if he fails to do it.

“We’ve caught 80,000 such Russian citizens, who don’t just want to go to the front line, they don’t even want to go to a conscription office,” chief prosecutor Alexander Bastrykin said in May 2025, referring to the migrants’ alleged patriotic sentiments.

He boasted that 20,000 Central Asians with Russian passports were herded to the front line in 2025.

The year before, he said 10,000 Central Asians had been sent to Ukraine.

Such remarks resonate with the Russian public that lives with “a high level of xenophobia in the stage of fear and helplessness,” Sergey Biziyukin, an exiled opposition activist from the western city of Ryazan, told Al Jazeera.

“For them, such phrases from Bastrykin are a form of sedative.”

What makes Central Asians easy targets is that they hail from police states, which depend on Moscow politically and economically, observers say.

“While the migrants are frightened into signing contracts, their motherland doesn’t really pay any attention,” Galiya Ibragimova, an Uzbekistan-born, Moldova-based regional expert, told Al Jazeera.

Despite hefty signup bonuses and relentless propaganda, the number of Russians who want to fight in Ukraine fell by at least one-fifth this year, and Moscow will strive to recruit more Central Asians, she said.

‘We’ll have our fingers broken’

After signing the contract and leaving his debit card with his sign-up bonus with his parents, Salohidinov was sent to the western city of Voronezh for three weeks of training that did little to prepare him for the war.

“We just kept running back and forth with guns,” he said.

Their drill sergeants, he says, told the conscripts that the standard-issue flak jackets, helmets, boots and flashlights were of subpar quality and urged them to pitch in a million rubles ($13,100) each for “better” gear.

The incident corroborates reports on dozens of similar cases in Russian military units.

Salohidinov was ordered to work in a kitchen – and was verbally abused and beaten for the slightest transgression.

Of 28 men in his unit, 21 were Muslims – but their ethnic Russian officers ignored their pleas not to have pork in meals, repeating a decades-old practice of ignoring religion-related dietary restrictions dating back to the Soviet army.

The commanders demonised Ukrainians, telling them “that if we surrender, we’d be tortured, have our fingers broken, maimed, get [construction] foam up our a**, have our teeth yanked out one by one, have our arms broken”, Salohidinov says.

In early January this year, the conscripts were bused to the Russia-occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk.

Salohidinov says he was tired, frightened and disoriented – Ukrainian drones were “always” above them and a grenade explosion nearby damaged his left eardrum.

‘Glad I got captured’

On the fourth day of his service, Salohidinov was ordered to run beyond Ukrainian positions as part of Russia’s new tactic to send two or three servicemen to infiltrate the porous front line.

The mission was suicidal because the terrain was open, dotted with landmines and the bodies of dead Russian soldiers, while Ukrainians were firing machineguns and flew drones above them.

“I ran and ran and saw we were being shot at,” he said. “Me and my commander decided to surrender voluntarily instead of dying for nothing.”

They detached their assault rifles’ magazines, raised their hands and yelled they were surrendering.

What followed was “a calm feeling, beautiful”, he said. “They fed us, let us have a smoke, gave us food and water and even cake.”

Now, Salohidinov hopes to return to Tajikistan and panics at the thought of being made part of a prisoner swap – these have taken place several times each year – and returning to Russia because he would be sent back to the front line.

Tajikistan and other Central Asian nations have never endorsed Russia’s war in Ukraine, but nor have they openly criticised it.

In August 2025, Tajikistan’s Prosecutor General Habibullo Vohidzoda declared that no Tajik national would be charged for fighting in Ukraine.

So, what Salohidinov needs right now is an extradition request.

“I’m even glad that I got captured, because I’m not fighting anyone now, not risking anything,” he said. “I’ll even say thanks to Ukraine for taking me prisoner.”

The Tajik embassy in Kyiv did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.