Throughout Ukraine’s Incursion, Russian Conscripts Recount Surrendering in Droves

They had been lanky and fresh-faced, and the battle they misplaced had been their first.

Packed into Ukrainian jail cells, dozens of captured Russian conscripts lay on cots or sat on wood benches, sporting flip-flops and, in a single occasion, watching cartoons on a tv supplied by the warden.

In interviews, they recalled abandoning their positions or surrendering as they discovered themselves dealing with well-equipped, battle-hardened Ukrainian forces streaming throughout their border.

“We ran right into a birch grove and hid,” mentioned Pvt. Vasily, whose small border fort was overrun on Aug. 6 — on the outset of a Ukrainian incursion into Russia that was the primary important international assault on the nation since World Warfare II. The New York Instances is figuring out the prisoners by solely their first names and ranks for his or her security if they’re returned to Russia in a prisoner change.

The combating marked a major shift within the struggle, with Ukrainian armored columns rumbling into Russia two and a half years after Russia had launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s border, it turned out, was defended thinly, largely by younger conscripted troopers who in interviews described surrendering or abandoning their positions. Personal Vasily mentioned he had survived by mendacity within the birch forest close to the Russian border for 3 days, coated in branches and leaves, earlier than deciding to give up.

“I by no means thought it will occur,” he mentioned of the Ukrainian assault.

The Russian army command had, by all indicators, made the identical assumption, manning its border defenses with inexperienced conscripts, some drafted solely months earlier. Their defeat and descriptions of surrendering in massive numbers may enhance Ukraine’s leverage in doable settlement talks and result in prisoner exchanges.