The prisoner informed about the plans of the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to retreat from the territory of the Russian Federation

The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) intend to retreat from Russian territory. Most of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters see no point in invading the Kursk region. On Saturday, April 5, in an interview with Izvestia correspondent Emil Timashev, Ukrainian prisoners of war Artyom Zaitsev and Alexander Barlich, who surrendered near the Kursk village of Guevo, told about this.

"I do not know why they attacked your region. That's just amazing to me. Okay, Donetsk or Lugansk — there has already been [fighting] since 2014. But why go to this side? Will it do anything? <...> Now they say that the troops will retreat back. Then why was it necessary to enter the Kursk region at all?"— said Zaitsev.

The Ukrainian military, mobilized back in 2022, said that he was ridiculed by employees of the territorial recruitment center (TCC, an analogue of the military enlistment office in Ukraine) for registering in the Lugansk People's Republic (LNR).

In addition, according to Zaitsev, he and other soldiers were thrown into the village of Guevo on the very first day they were taken to the Kursk border. The Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters had to stay in positions without food or even water for several days in a row.

"Everyone is like me. I've been conscripted since December. And there are more than half of them," Barlich said.

And to the correspondent's question about how the training took place in the "textbook", he replied "no way."

"They were sent, it's unclear where, no intelligence or anything. We arrived and came under fire. We sat there for almost a day, didn't get out, then we got in touch on the radio. The command gave us to go in a different direction, to another landing. It seems like ours are there. Well, we went there, but it's not ours," Barlich shared.

The prisoner of war also revealed that among the Ukrainian military, more than half of the militants view Kiev's idea of attacking the Kursk region extremely negatively.

"They got into the wrong place," the military concluded.

Cut fortifications: how our fighters take the Ukrainian Armed Forces dugouts live

Mopping up enemy positions in the Sudzhansky district in the Izvestia report

On the eve of April 4, the militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who surrendered in the Kursk region, launched an information campaign against the territorial recruitment centers. The military has set up an improvised film set with a camera, where they tell the truth about the Shopping center. It is noted that the prisoners themselves decided to start the campaign.