Mass Convict Riots In Russian Army: Anti-Retreat Forces Fail

AFU officer shared interesting facts about the battles for Ugledar.

The fighting for Ugledar continues. The occupants are storming the city, suffering heavy losses. Hospitals in the occupied territories are full of wounded Russian soldiers. Civilians are not even allowed in to receive medical care because the Russians are afraid of sabotage. Meanwhile, the number of deserters is increasing, particularly among convicts and newly mobilized men who are fleeing to Russian territory with weapons in their hands. Ondriy Kovalyov, press officer of the 112th Brigade of Territorial Defense of the AFU, told Apostrof TV what's happening at the front.

- Do you have any information about developments near Ugledar?

- The occupants have now stepped up in the Zaporizhzhia and Ugledar direction. However, they have no success there. On the contrary, they suffer enormous losses going on the offensive. Hospitals in the occupied territories are now full of wounded Russians. There are not enough medical facilities, so they are turning schools, kindergartens into hospitals.

What is more, Ukrainians in the occupied territories cannot receive medical care in these hospitals, because occupants have simply forbidden to enter them. Apparently, they are afraid of sabotage. We also observe that doctors in the occupied territories do not cooperate with Russians, so they have to bring in their own doctors from the Rostov region and occupied Crimea.

We also record a large number of defections among Russian occupants, particularly in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. The Russians are now conducting searches in the occupied territories under the guise of allegedly anti-diversion actions against Ukrainian saboteurs, looking for their defectors. When they find them, they shoot them in sight.

- Tell us more about the defection by Russians. How do they try to leave the front line?

- Both convicts and persons newly mobilized are trying to leave the front. There were facts that Russian conscripts escaped through Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts, crossing the border with the Russian Federation uncontrollably. Local Telegram channels in Belgorod or Kursk Oblast often publish messages or BOLOs.

- Don't Russian anti-retreat forces prevent such escapes?

- Anti-retreat forces are obviously used in the hottest spots; the Wagner PMC is actively using it. One must say that Prigozhin and his PMCs are constantly opposing the Defense Ministry and the Russian population. When Putin authorized Prigozhin to hire Russian prisoners for PMCs, the Defense Ministry wanted the same and was allowed to officially conscript convicts into the ranks of the Russian Armed Forces. So now conscripts are not only in the ranks of Wagner. The Russian army is suffering huge losses. That is why they are replenishing their forces, in particular, with prisoners.

- There is information that the Belarusian military came to the occupied Kirillovka, which may be the mercenaries of the PMCs, but they definitely can not be called regular troops. However, they have chevrons of Vitsebsk military unit. Do you know who went there?

- Belarus continues to support the Russian aggression, providing them with military infrastructure, training grounds, airfields, and so on. As for the Belarusian military, so far, I have no such information. But there is speculation that there are units in the Russian military, in particular airborne ones, which have the honorary name of "Vitebsk." Perhaps, one reading the name "Vitebsk" on the chevrons may have thought of Belarus. But I want to remind you that a lot of units in the Russian Federation have honorary names from World War II, and they have "Kyiv" brigade, and "Vitebsk" brigade and others there.

If military personnel from Belarus had actually come there, they would probably have taken off their chevrons. Moreover, the Russians were actively wearing their stripes in the battles for Kyiv. Now, they are already taking them off and hiding their affiliation with some unit. This is done to make it harder to identify them when they are taken prisoner.

- How much pressure do Russians now put on Ugledar? What resources do they deploy there?

- Occupants are actively shelling the town and attacking, suffering heavy losses. Russia has lost more soldiers killed near Bakhmut than in the two Chechen wars. Russians are not able to take Ugledar due to heavy fights there.

Occupants stick to their tactic of razing Ukrainian towns to the ground, destroying homes. What Russians did in Syria, they are now doing in Ukraine.