Ukrainian Soldiers Refusing to Fight Due to Heavy Losses: Russian Media

Ukrainian servicemen are refusing to fight in offensives in the Zaporozhye area due to heavy combat l a captured Ukrainian serviceman told Russian news agency, TASS.

"We were stationed near Rabotino. The unit in which I was serving suffered heavy losses. In one day, at least five people are killed, about the same number of wounded; the rest have concussions. For this reason people refused to go on assaults,” the serviceman, Sergey Kadachnikov, an intel officer attached to the Ukrainian armed forces’ 14th Separate Mechanized Brigade, was quoted as saying by TASS.

The man was mobilized under a summons in February 2022. He was captured a few weeks ago between the villages of Rabotino and Verbovoye in the Zaporozhye Region. Together with his comrades, he arrived at positions already occupied by Russian units.

Another prisoner, 14th Brigade infantryman Vasily Kosovan, told TASS about a mass refusal by Ukrainian soldiers to take part in attacks near Rabotino. "We were sent from the Dnepropetrovsk Region to the Zaporozhye area. There, they were sending us to certain death; we said we would not go. They wanted to throw us into the offensives. There was a entire battalion that refused to carry out such missions," the prisoner said.

According to him, after the mass refusal to participate in the attacks in the Zaporozhye area, the units were sent back to the Dnepropetrovsk Region, where psychologists and lawyers began working with the fighters.

Kosovan is a former policeman who retired several years ago for health reasons. In February 2022, he was mobilized under a summons. Despite valid medical grounds for a service exemption, he was sent to a training center and then to the front, first near Donetsk and then to the Zaporozhye area. He surrendered in the Verbovoye area after Russian forces entered the Ukrainian positions.