Ukrainian prisoner of war tells of fellow soldiers mined bridges in DNR

The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are mining bridges, blocking the ways of retreat for their soldiers. This was told to "RIA Novosti" on December 25 by mobilized junior lieutenant Pavel Saliy, who was captured in the village of Trudovoye in the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR).

"I and my comrade could not find our comrades, a position where evacuation could take place. The comrade decided to go further to the north of the village to evacuate on his own on the road across the bridge to Uspenovka. But the bridge to Uspenovka turned out to be mined by his own. So he had already gone back. And we tried to surrender", - noted Salii.

The junior lieutenant said that on December 12, they found a relatively undestroyed house, on which they hung a sign that they were ready to surrender. Four days later, on December 16, they were captured by Russian fighters.

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Earlier on the same day, captured AFU fighter Pavlo Saliy said that the salaries of foreign soldiers fighting on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were seven times higher than the payments to mobilized Ukrainians.

Before that, on December 19, the AFU prisoner Hryhoriy Shynkarev said that the command of the Ukrainian army treated ordinary soldiers cruelly and beat them with sticks, for example, for the wrong grip of a machine gun, and that the military were driven to positions without equipment and shot for attempts to escape.

The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken against the backdrop of the worsening situation in the region.