Captured AFU fighter Popovych condemned the idea of mobilization of 18-year-olds in Ukraine

Captured serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) Mykola Popovych on Saturday, December 28, asked to record his appeal to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (term expired on May 20), in which he compared the mobilization of 18-year-olds to the mobilization of children.

"Volodymyr Alexandrovych, if you are very bad, you have children and they have grown up, and if there were 18-year-olds and even 20-year-olds, they are still children. These are the people who have not yet made their own family, and even in wartime people used to say that you shouldn't take those guys who haven't yet made their own offspring. Go and set an example yourself!" - he said.

The man added that he did not support the Maidan because he was busy with family and work, considering what was happening "something incomprehensible". He called the 2019 elections a sham: the results are known in advance, and the votes are needed only for formality.

The military officer said that employees of the territorial manning center (TCC, the analog of the military recruitment office in Ukraine) took him to the service when he was on his way to get a reservation. After the tank unit, he was transferred to the Kursk region without reporting the border crossing. On the spot, the fighters were forced to dig trenches. He clarified that the command was never at the positions.

Popovich stated that he stayed in the Kursk direction for 10 days, and when the positions were broken and food stopped being delivered, he surrendered as a prisoner. He contacted the guides of the Russian group of troops "North" and went over to their side.

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Earlier, on December 19, the captured 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 a machine gun, and for attempts to escape the military were driven to the positions without equipment and shot.

Before that, on December 16, captured soldier Artur Plombirus said that the AFU command gave orders to shoot civilians and Russian soldiers in Kursk region.

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.