The Russian soldier was presumed dead in 2004 but reappeared from the freezing wasteland a decade later. The army deserter had been stationed in the remote Kamchatka Peninsula back in 2003. However, a year into his tour he wandered off, as if disappearing into thin air.

Of course a search was undertaken to locate the man, whose name is as much a mystery as his disappearance, but it was called off when a body was found. His family falsely identified the missing relative as their own flesh and blood, they even buried the poor soul.

The regional branch of the interior ministry revealed in a statement that “he lived in Kamchatka all this time, mainly hiding in the forest. He got by with odd jobs and did not attempt to get in touch with his family.”

So how on earth did one man survive? If he couldn’t hack it in the army surely he couldn’t hack it alone in the Russian wilderness. Evidently he did, working on a private pig farm and collecting scrap to survive. While fashioning himself a home out of waste building material on the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky outskirts.

Under Russian law soldiers found guilty of desertion can face up to seven years behind bars, so I guess this guy thought fleeing into the forest was his best option. Now for an unknown reason he has returned home.

Although he has been apprehended by the police, the head of Russia’s Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, Valentina Melnikova, doubts he will be sent to prison. She said: “There were lots of deserters in those days in the far east. We’ve had cases when some would hide in a basement for years, but they would go through a psychiatric examination and would be set free.”

Can you hear that? That’s the sound of a future Oscar winning movie going into production.