The soldiers were left to die chained by their commanders, a Telegram channel linked to Russia’s North military group has said
The Russian military has found the chained bodies of Ukrainian troops after taking over the fortified positions of Kiev’s forces, according to a Telegram channel linked to Russia’s North military group.
The Russian soldiers were “shocked” by their discovery in one of the rooms inside a stronghold in Kharkov Region, the Severny Veter (Northern Wind) channel reported on Friday.
It published a graphic video showing at least two corpses in Ukrainian military uniforms with long rusty chains attached to their legs.
The Ukrainian troops “were simply abandoned without food and water. One of them had tried to escape, but could not break free from the chains,” the channel said.
It is up to the Russian investigative bodies to establish what exactly happened to the soldiers, but it is “already clear that they died in terrible agony, with traces of torture being clearly visible on their bodies,” Severny Veter stressed.
The channel claimed that the incident, which is likely not an isolated one, “not only proves that the Ukrainian military leadership are neo-Nazi criminals and terrorists… but also reveals the general level of motivation within the Ukrainian military.”
Severny Veter claimed that too many Ukrainian soldiers are refusing to fight and, because of this, their commanders are “staging demonstrative executions to persuade the troops to engage in another ‘meat assault’.”
Bloomberg reported in early December that at least 96,000 desertion cases have been opened in Ukraine since the escalation between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022.
Reports of Ukrainian soldiers voluntarily leaving their positions or refusing to obey orders have been on the rise in 2024 amid steady Russian military advances along the entire front line.
Last week, The Economist reported that Ukraine’s 155th Mechanized Brigade, trained and funded by France, has been plagued by mass desertions and internal mismanagement. Around 1,700 of its members (one-third of the brigade) have reportedly gone absent without leave, with some returning to their old units and 50 others disappearing in France.
