On the morning of February 24, thousands of Russian troops poured into Ukraine in a full-blown invasion. Pavel Filatiev was one of them. The 33-year-old paratroop spent two months on the front line before resigning from the army for health reasons. Now, he openly opposes the war. In a new book titled “ZOV” (after the symbols painted on Russian military vehicles), Filatiev offers an inside look at the state of the Russian army in the lead-up to the war and details his experience in the early days of the invasion. The following translated excerpts from his book were first published (in Russian) by the investigative journalism outlet iStories.