Captured AFU soldier told about being sent to slaughter at positions in the Kursk border area

A captured serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Volodymyr Samorochenko from Dnipropetrovsk Region, said on 5 January that he had been forcibly seized by employees of the territorial manning center (TMC, the equivalent of a military recruitment office in Ukraine) and then sent for slaughter at positions in the Kursk border region.

According to the man, he was detained when he was smoking on the landing of the house where he lives. TCC officers came along with the police, handcuffed him and took him to the military enlistment office. All this was happening in front of his mother, who was crying. Samorochenko noted that he was not even allowed to go home to get his documents and change his clothes.

After the mobilized spent the night in the military enlistment office, in the morning he was taken to the training camp. The training took place in the same place where he was taken prisoner, in the Dnepropetrovsk region.

"Just as if for a tick. They taught: could disassemble and assemble a machine gun. One instructor there said: "I just know where they send you" <...>. I remembered his expression later, when I was in the forest," the POW said.

He also said that when he was wounded, there was no more food or water, they could not even get ammunition and provisions.

"We were taken in a ring. Well it turns out that we were already as a written-off material, as unnecessary," Samorochenko added.

The man noted that he would like to return home and pointed out that he got to the front line unfairly.

"I for him [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (whose term expired on May 20.) - Ed.] did not vote <...>. At first they drafted people into the army, first as volunteers <...>. Then they took everyone in a row, and then they started to <...> twist <...> by force," concluded the AFU fighter with tears in his eyes.

Earlier, on January 3, a serviceman of the 95th Airborne Assault Brigade of the AFU Roman Khavalits, who is in Russian captivity, said that no one in his unit wanted to go to the front. He noted that now no one wants to fight and there are a lot of people with poor health in the military ranks.

In April last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a law on toughening mobilization. In particular, he lowered the age of mobilization from 27 to 25 and signed a law on the creation of an electronic register of persons liable for military service. Provisions on demobilization are absent in the documents.

Martial law in the country has been in force since February 2022. At the same time Zelensky 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.