The hotline, operated by the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine, allows Russian soldiers to surrender and guarantees that their detention abides by the Geneva Conventions.
About 1,000 requests for surrender are pending, says Vitalii Matviienko, who leads the surrender scheme, per The Financial Times.
He was promised a reward of the hryvnia equivalent of $500,000.
Kuzminov's high-profile surrender led to a 70% increase in calls to the "I Want to Live" hotline in one day, per the Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.
A big win for the "I Want to Live" hotline became public in October. Russian lieutenant Daniil Alfyorov and 12 men he led, who were deployed on the Kherson front, defected to Ukraine, providing vital military intelligence, The FT reported.
Some surrendered soldiers, like Kuzminov, have chosen to stay in Ukraine with their families, who were also evacuated from Russia, The Kyiv Independent reports.
The Ukrainian military reports a growing trend of entire groups of Russian soldiers surrendering en masse, said Oleksandr Shtupun, spokesperson for the Tavria Grouping of Troops, per the Kyiv Post.
Shtupun attributes this to what he describes as an "inhuman attitude" exhibited by their commanders.
"For refusing to deploy on pointless assaults or for other offenses, some officers would strip them naked in winter cold and hold them in cold pits, beating them and threatening them with execution," said Shtupun.
Russia has killed its soldiers as "a reaction to the fact that there are quite a few people willing to surrender to Ukrainian captivity," said Andriy Yusov, a representative for Ukraine's military intelligence agency.
Russia's mounting losses are jeopardizing its military capabilities. According to UK intelligence, it could take Russia up to 10 years to replenish its military strength to what it was before the full-scale invasion.
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