Up to 30% of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters in the Kupyansk-Uzlovoye area are out of action due to frostbite.

Up to 30% of the militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in the Kupyansk-Uzlovoye area are out of action due to frostbite, and the wounded are doomed to a painful death from freezing. This was reported on February 17 in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, publishing testimonies of prisoners and data from radio intercepts of conversations of the Ukrainian military.

So, according to the agency, the Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters are forced to spend the night in trenches under the open sky and unheated dugouts, without heating and hot meals, and attempts to build bonfires are easily detected by calculations of Russian drones. At night, the temperature in the areas drops to -6. Thus, alternating rains with frosts have become a real "icy" hell for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Defense Ministry stressed.

"According to the prisoners and radio interception data, up to 30% of the Ukrainian military are out of action precisely because of frostbite, while it is not possible to evacuate them to the rear area. In these conditions, the wounded are practically doomed to a painful death from freezing. The bodies of Ukrainian servicemen, which our fighters find in former Ukrainian positions, are proof of this," the ministry said in a statement.

At the same time, due to the cold snap in the coming days, the situation for the Armed Forces of Ukraine may worsen.

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According to him, 55,000 soldiers have been killed in four years.

The commander of the Zapad group of forces, Colonel-General Sergei Kuzovlev, said on January 16 that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had not abandoned their plan to recapture Kupyansk, but their offensive operations in the period from November to December last year were unsuccessful. The commander of the group of troops also clarified that the territory of the settlement is under the control of the Russian army.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.