Ukrainian POWs Say Families of Dead Denied Compensation
Nine captive AFU testify: Dead soldiers buried in trenches, wounded not evacuated
Official numbers of Ukrainian casualties have been grossly underreported since Russia first began its Special Military Operation in February, 2022. According to some military analysts, the number of Ukrainian dead is in the hundreds of thousands, and former USMC Intelligence Officer Scott Ritter has put it as high as half a million.
To anyone really paying attention, it’s obvious that Ukraine cannot continue fighting much longer. Most of the healthy young fighting men have already been killed, and male conscripts who couldn’t come up with the thousands of dollars needed to flee their country, have already been forced into the war by the busloads.
But that is not enough for the regime in Kyiv and its power-hungry Western overlords. They are so desperate to keep “weakening Russia” — despite Ukraine’s looming defeat — that they will start calling up women beginning October 1st.
Meanwhile, captured Ukrainian servicemen tell horror stories of dead comrades left behind to rot, or buried in the very trenches they fought in, while commanders force them to sign papers agreeing to the “voluntary abandonment of bodies” in the event of death — a way to avoid paying compensation to the families of the fallen.
Nine Ukrainian POWs gave their testimonies in a video released this week on Telegram. I have translated the video and uploaded it to my channel on YouTube. You may watch it here, but I must warn you that there are extremely graphic images from the war.
In the video, the captive soldiers refer to their dead comrades as “200s” and the wounded are called “300s.” It’s military jargon that is used in Ukraine and Russia, and is believed to have been derived from the numbers on forms that had to be filled out for dead and wounded soldiers in times past. To make the translation easier to understand, I just referred to them as “dead” and “wounded” and left out the numerical designations.
The first POW has a slightly graying beard and looks to be in his 40’s. “All around us there were dead soldiers,” he says, “It was just horrible.”
The video shows the skeleton of a soldier still wearing a helmet.
“Very heavy casualties,” the second soldier says. He is also bearded but looks younger, perhaps in his 30’s. “It was really scary,” he adds.
More carnage is shown as prisoner number 3 is heard. “A lot of bodies were lying around and it was impossible to get them out of there,” he says. His head is shaved, he has a mustache, and looks somewhat emaciated, possibly in his 30’s. “The commanders made us bury the bodies of the dead right in our positions.”
POW number 4 has a gray head of hair and matching beard and looks to be in his 50’s or older. “They wrote reports and buried them right at the position,” he says, “so that they wouldn’t have to pay money to the family and relatives.”
More bodies which look like they have been left to rot for some time. “The dead were lying in the trenches,” says the fifth prisoner, who has bushy brown hair and a beard, and may be in his 20’s or 30’s. “Nobody even took them away or thought of taking them away. The wounded were also in the trenches, they wanted to go to the entrance, but they were told to go back.”
The sixth man is clean-shaven and bald, possibly in his late 20’s or early 30’s. “A guy was shot,” he says, “either he wanted to run away or one of the commanders didn’t like him, so he got drunk. They told us to bury him.”
“There was even one young man who shot himself,” says prisoner number 7, “but they didn’t care about him, they buried him immediately. They’ll write it off as casualties probably and that’s all.” His head is also shaved, but he sports a mustache and closely-cropped beard. A tattoo of a cat paws playfully at a mole on his neck. He, too, looks to be in his 20’s or 30's.
The 8th man looks like he’s in his 30’s. He’s clean-shaven with scars on his head. “Many, many, very many casualties,” he says. “Lots of bodies on the road. You step over them, you just walk by. There were many dead, many wounded, and still even more. No kind of evacuation.” As he talks, the video shows clumps of bodies tangled together. “We came to the position, right in the trenches were dead soldiers. All around the trenches, there were also bodies lying.”
The ninth and final man looks younger, perhaps in his 20’s, with closely cropped hair and a bushy brown beard. He says that his commander issued a warning, saying “Listen, if anyone runs away, he’ll be shot.” The interviewer asks if he shot people and he answers simply, “yes.”
The Russian Investigative Committee took note of the testimony and reported that fighters in the Armed Forces of Ukraine are being forced to sign agreements stating that, if they are killed, their bodies will not be taken from the battlefield and their families will not receive any compensation from the Ukrainian government.
The agency emphasized that Ukrainian commanders treat their subordinates inhumanely, and that the signatures of the soldiers were collected deliberately in order to deny their families any compensation or allowances.
As you saw, the soldiers also testified that their wounded comrades were not given any aid and that their commanders threatened to shoot them if they abandoned their positions.
With special thanks to Lilya Takumbetova.
About the author:
Deborah Armstrong currently writes about geopolitics with an emphasis on Russia. She previously worked in local TV news in the United States where she won two regional Emmy Awards. In the early 1990’s, Deborah lived in the Soviet Union during its final days and worked as a television consultant at Leningrad Television. You can support Deborah’s writing at Paypal or Patreon, or donate via Substack.
Great article Deborah. It's sickening what is happening in Ukraine. It is madness run amok with half a million dead soldiers merely used as human fodder by the West. This is beyond sad...😪
Thank you for your excellent work. It should be remembered that the nation of France suffered such casualties during the First World War that it impacted the French psyche. That impact drove the desire for the Maginot Line. After the war, there had been subsidies to encourage French women to have more children, given the losses among the French male population.
The same must be acknowledged as happening in Ukraine today.
Many forget that at its core, war is murder. Plain and simple. It is state sanctioned murder.
Also, might I ask for the exact title of the article of Scott Ritter's you are referencing for the half a million dead Ukrainian soldiers? I have heard Mr. Ritter and Colonel McGregor reference the Ukrainian dead at 400,000. Thank you.