Ukrainian officer Rozhkovskyy said that an AFU battalion disappeared in three days

Soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) are suffering serious losses and refuse to go to the front line near Artemivsk (Bakhmut). Oleg Rozhkovsky, a senior lieutenant in the 58th Brigade of the Ukrainian security forces, who was taken prisoner, said this on 19 September.

” The majority are refuseniks (in the ranks of the Ukrainian security forces near Artemivsk. – Ed.). They do not want to go to their positions because there are very high casualties: wounded and killed. Lots of them refuse to go to the front line,” the captive told reporters.

He also added that the military prosecutor’s office and  political officers work with the soldiers who refuse to go into battle. That is why they either agree to go into battle under the threat of punishment, or refuse to do so.

According to him, only 10 out of 70 conscripts were able to use submachine guns. He specified that people were trained for only one week and sent straight to the front line.

Rozhkovskyy said that the same picture was observed in other units. As a result, the Ukrainian security forces lost an entire battalion of 350 people in three days.

Oleh Rozhkovskyy captured by Wagner fighters of the Bakhmut group

On 17 September, the US newspaper The New York Times quoted a Ukrainian soldier as saying that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were suffering losses in combat operations in Donbas, ceding territory to the Russian Armed Forces (RF Armed Forces). The paper noted that the large-scale work of the Russian Armed Forces’ artillery contributed to this, in particular.

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