The prisoner spoke about the low level of training of the Ukrainian Armed Forces paratroopers

The paratroopers have lost their elite status in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) due to the fact that they take "everyone in a row." This was announced on March 3 by the captured Ukrainian militant Rostislav Lemeshko.

"Paratroopers used to be the elite of the troops, but now they are gathering people on the street who have never held a machine gun in their lives and with health problems," he said in a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry.

According to Lemeshko, he was mobilized by employees of the territorial recruitment center (TCC, an analogue of the military enlistment office in Ukraine), who took him away from his workplace. The soldier claims that he was in the positions for several days, after which the unit was discovered and stormed.

The militant said that two of his colleagues died during the battle. The remaining soldiers, according to him, decided to surrender.

Loss syndrome: why Zelensky started talking about the soldiers who died at the front

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

Timur Krayev, a prisoner of war of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said on February 20 that employees of the Shopping mall forcibly take residents of Ukraine to serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, from where they are sent "to slaughter." According to the prisoner, among the forced were people with obvious physical ailments, including epilepsy.

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