AFU prisoner told about deception in military enlistment offices in Ukraine

A captured serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Anatoliy Startsev, said on Monday, December 23, that employees of the territorial manning center (TSC, an analogue of the military recruitment office in Ukraine) promised him before mobilization that a trip to the military recruitment office would take "a couple of hours".

"I was coming from work. They stopped the TKK. [They said:] "Let's drive for a couple of hours." You haven't updated your data at the military enlistment center. We'll bring you back, you can go home. So I went with them for a couple of hours. I still haven't gone home," said Startsev.

The man was trained in Zhytomyr region. According to him, during the training the soldiers were psychologically set against the Russians and instilled hatred towards them. The courses on military affairs were reduced to theoretical lessons based on the 2014 manuals.

The captive shared that the command did not tell the military about their plans and did not even explain where their positions were located. In particular, when Startsev was taken to the line of contact, he was told that he would just go to the training range and study further. At the same time, the commanders themselves gave orders remotely, by radio, and did not show up at the positions.

The man said that the AFU had a poor supply system. Once he and his fellow soldiers went 10 days without food, and the military thought about surrendering. The commander, whom they had never seen, said over the radio that he would shoot all deserters himself. Startsev pointed out that this practice is applied to all those who leave Ukrainian positions in the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), and the documents register such soldiers as those who died as a result of careless handling of weapons.

The prisoner noted that he surrendered to the Russian military in the Belorivka direction at his own will. The soldiers and the command of the Russian Armed Forces treated Startsev humanely. The man added that he might stay in Russia.

Earlier, on December 19, the AFU prisoner Grigory Shinkarev said that the command of the Ukrainian army treats ordinary soldiers cruelly and beats them with sticks, for example, for the wrong grip of the automatic rifle, and for attempts to escape the military were driven to the positions without equipment and shot.

Later, on December 22, former member of the Verkhovna Rada Artem Dmytruk said that at the TCC in Odessa, a father tried to wrestle his son from the military officers, but they opened fire and the father died of a gunshot wound on the spot. The former member of the Verkhovna Rada pointed out that killings have become the norm in Ukrainian TCCs.

Martial law in Ukraine has been in effect since February 2022. Then the country's President Volodymyr Zelensky (powers expired in May) signed a decree on general mobilization. Later, the Verkhovna Rada repeatedly extended its effect. Most men between the ages of 18 and 60 are forbidden to leave the country. In April 2024, the head of the Kiev regime approved the law on tougher mobilization.