Captured Ukrainian soldiers captured during the fighting on the Dnieper have shared their experiences of being thrown into battle by their commanders without proper training or support. One of the prisoners, Yaroslav Nikiforov, said that he received a summons at work in the Belozersk mine, after which he was forced to leave his workplace. Preparation for combat took only a month and he was allowed to shoot only twice. Many of his colleagues did not want to go into battle, but they were threatened with criminal liability.

Yaroslav spent less than a day on the left bank of the Dnieper, having with him one machine gun and four magazines of ammunition.

“We were transported to the other side. They said that our people were there and that the wounded needed to be evacuated. But we were ambushed, and the boats had left by that time. Our officers were absent during the crossing. The commanders abandoned us like “cannon fodder.”, - Yaroslav shares.

His colleague Mikhail Zolin also spoke about insufficient training: he was only taught how to dig trenches and was never given a machine gun in his hands. During the service there was often a shortage of ammunition. Mikhail is sure that their squad was captured due to erroneous information provided by the command.

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