Posted on 03/03/2022 7:24:12 AM PST by george76
Ukraine has invited Russian women to come to Kyiv and collect their sons, many of whom appear to be inexperienced and frightened teenage conscripts..
In a field surrounded by the people he had been sent to fight, a young Russian prisoner of war hungrily gulped down the tea and bread they offered him.
A Ukrainian woman calmed him, telling the soldier not to worry. Using her phone, she made a video call to his mother. As soon as his mother appeared on the screen, he burst into tears.
“Everything is OK,” his female captor said, while others stroked his back. “Natasha, God be with you. We will call you later. He is alive and healthy.”
Video of the incident has circulated on Ukrainian and Russian social media channels, and has been hailed as an example of human compassion in wartime.
Numerous other clips, apparently showing Russian prisoners of war captured by Ukrainian soldiers or civilian fighters, have been widely shared. Many of the captives appear to be no more than teenagers.
One soldier, who gave his name as Daniil, was forced to lie on the ground while civilian gunmen tore the badges from his uniform. The soldier, who said he was from Buryatia, a republic on the border with Mongolia, gave his year of birth as 2003.
Another video shows a soldier in handcuffs telling his mother that he loves her and: “They sent us to death, everyone killed everyone.”
...
In another, a soldier said that they were not allowed to collect the bodies of their fallen comrades, and there were “no funerals”.
A military adviser to President Zelensky claimed that more than 7,000 Russian soldiers had been killed since the invasion began last Thursday, and hundreds had been taken prisoner, including senior officers. The Russians claim that they have lost 498 soldiers.
Of Russia’s 900,000 strong standing army, roughly 250,000 are conscripts. A 12-month military draft is mandatory for men between the ages of 18 and 27. In apparent attempt to turn the tide of Russian opinion against the war, the defence ministry in Kyiv said that captured Russians would be handed over to their mothers “if they come to collect them” in Ukraine.
“You will be received and taken to Kyiv where your son will be returned to you,” the ministry statement said. “Unlike Putin’s fascists, we Ukrainians are not waging war against mothers and their captured children.”
Ukraine has also set up a hotline for Russian parents to find out whether their sons are among the dead or captured.
In another video, marked with the symbol of the Ukrainian government, a Russian soldier tells the camera that he and his unit were told by their superiors they were in Ukraine to act as a peacekeeping force. He said: “They told us that Zelensky had signed a declaration of surrender, and that we simply needed to go in and protect Kyiv.”
Other soldiers said they were told that they had come to Ukraine for “training exercises”. In one video, a soldier said his unit was training in the Russian town of Belgorod when troops were woken in the middle of the night and taken to Ukraine.
The Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia supported the claim. The organisation, which monitors human rights violations in the Russian military, claimed that many of the soldiers had been tricked into enlisting. It said soldiers were told they were heading to the border for drills but had their contracts changed to include conflict.
Intercepted radio messages obtained by the British intelligence company ShadowBreak indicated that Russian troops were refusing to obey orders to shell Ukrainian towns. In other transmissions, intercepted from military radios, soldiers can be heard crying in combat, insulting one another and, in one instance, shooting at each other.
We’re supposed to believe this? LOL.
Propaganda.
I’m guessing that Ukraine will fall, Putin will get what he wants. Reports like this will be exposed as pathetic propaganda and the media will shrug and say, “Well, yeah. We knew that. But we just thought we’d go with it anyway.”
Russia as a nation…has a long soul searching journey ahead of itself…
Originally the “Russians” were in Ukrainian uniforms with the Russian jacket on top. This one is at least an improvement.
Misinformation? Propaganda? Who knows?
Meanwhile the the crying Russians have surrounded Mariupol and cut off its food, electricity, and water and are shelling it 24x7.
Anyone watching or reading anything on the MSM about this war…is joining the ranks of a mass formation psychosis
Right before our eyes
Do you also want to moralize about Iraq and Afghanistan?
Do we have to wait to find out if they were really crying?
Of course, any Ukrainian soldier that cries isn’t reported news though.
Nope.
.. Sorta believe it.
Russia sends old, broken equipment and unimportant people into a battle at first to soften the enemy and get them ready for better forces and equipment to come in.
They also need an airport or two. And these conscripts can die by the tens of thousands to get these airports.
This is stuff they learned in WW2.
I can’t say for sure that this is the tactic and strategy because I’ve also seen TERRIBLE Russian equipment in my day. We all have. We’ve also seen russian soldiers disobey orders, clown around and get parts of their own bodies blown off.
So I am not sure, but i don’t trust anything I see or hear on this war.
The propaganda coming out of the UK gets more shrill every day.
Video from Russian troops (uncaptured) with translation.
https://twitter.com/CITeam_en/status/1499361692261756945
The Russians presumably have Uke prisoners, but they aren’t showing them.
I am all for compassion, and it isn’t hard to imagine that this kind of thing might occur, but it sure does seem like propaganda to me. It has a heavy-handed smell to it.
Of course, a little less heavy handed than the North Vietnamese putting our American captured pilots on television and having them admit to deliberately bombing schools and hospitals, thus making them Imperialist Running Dogs, but...propaganda nonetheless.
Think about the US Civil War, where many of the combatants not only shared the same language but the same or very similar culture. And some were even relations. The Ukrainians and Russians look similar and speak somewhat understandable dialects to each other. Like it or not, they had nearly a shared century of being forced to be “the same country” and so on.
If that Civil War in the US took place today with technology, I could see a civilian on one side or the other giving a captured soldier a phone and saying “Call your mother and tell her you are okay.” Of course, no way anyone in the military would even think of it. You would probably be severely punished if not shot on the spot. But I could see it happening.
Granted, we don’t have the history here of one side starving millions on the other side to death for political purposes, and a host of things like that, but you get what I mean.
Of course, in war, It could just as easily (and more likely) to see someone shot on the spot and run through with a bayonet. Especially on the part of those being invaded, and who would blame them?
Of course Russia is always honest.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.