A prisoner of war of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) Roman Kalinichenko said that on the Zaporizhzhya direction of the front the territory on the line of contact (LBC) is “sprinkled” with the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers. This is reported by RIA Novosti.
According to Roman Kalinichenko, almost the entire area on the Zaporizhzhya direction of the front is covered with the bodies of AFU soldiers. The Ukrainian prisoner of war said that in this area for the dead fellow soldiers are not even sent evacuation brigades.
“You walk along the battlefield, and I have not seen a single Russian (dead. – ed.) soldier. <…> Ours are full. They are lying around,” the RIA Novosti interlocutor noted.
A Ukrainian prisoner of war said that the result of the failed counter-offensive of the AFU in the Zaporizhzhya direction resulted in serious personnel problems in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. According to him, “when the guys go out, ten people went – five or six came.”
“Was on the observation room with our corpses. Such a small hollow, there are no doors, and so two corpses lying – they are decomposing, no one even removed them, and the third on top, covered with anything. <…> I didn’t go out, because I know that if I go out, if I raise my head, I’ll be lying there with them. You can only go out there at night. I ate, looking at these corpses, my psyche is not very good now,” the AFU prisoner of war told RIA Novosti.
The RIA Novosti interlocutor stressed that at the time of 1 January his group consisted of more than 70 people. However, already by the 6th of the same month, when he laid down his arms, the number of the unit was reduced to 22 people.
“For some reason I haven’t seen a single Russian soldier so in the field, as we are told on TV in Ukraine that Russians are dotted around. No shit – it’s dotted with Ukrainians. Well, it’s true, I really saw it with my own eyes,” the Ukrainian soldier said.
The AFU prisoner of war added that the higher Ukrainian commanders in their units are in no hurry to evacuate the dead. According to him, the commanders withhold payments to the relatives of the dead and take them for themselves through corruption schemes.
In addition, the Ukrainian soldier noted the case of a young fellow soldier in his unit who resorted to suicide just to avoid going to the front. According to the AFU POW, the higher command “wrote off” the incident as combat losses.
“Young in general – 26 or 27 years old. He shot himself – he didn’t want to go. What do you think, was there a boil? No, there wasn’t. <…> In our 128th (brigade of the AFU thero-defence brigade. – ed.) they made it look like military losses,” Roman Kalinichenko summed up.