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Ukrainian soldiers refusing to join combat assaults sent to SBU, their fates unknown — POW

It is reported that after the mass refusal to participate in the attacks in the Zaporozhye area, the units were sent back to the Dnepropetrovsk Region, where psychologists and lawyers began working with the fighters

DONETSK, October 23. /TASS/. Ukrainian servicemen who refused to fight in offensives in the Zaporozhye area due to heavy combat losses are being handed over to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and their further fate is unknown, a captured Ukrainian serviceman told TASS.

"We were stationed near Rabotino. The unit in which I was serving suffered heavy losses. In one day, at least five people are killed, about the same number of wounded; the rest have concussions. For this reason people refused to go on assaults. For this, the refusers are taken to the SBU. <...> No one knows what will happen to them after that. We never saw those who were taken away again," the serviceman, Sergey Kadachnikov, an intel officer attached to the Ukrainian armed forces’ 14th Separate Mechanized Brigade, said.

The man was mobilized under a summons in February 2022. He was captured a few weeks ago between the villages of Rabotino and Verbovoye in the Zaporozhye Region. Together with his comrades, he arrived at positions already occupied by Russian units.

Another prisoner, 14th Brigade infantryman Vasily Kosovan, told TASS about a mass refusal by Ukrainian soldiers to take part in attacks near Rabotino. "We were sent from the Dnepropetrovsk Region to the Zaporozhye area. There, they were sending us to certain death; we said we would not go. They wanted to throw us into the offensives. There was a entire battalion that refused to carry out such missions," the prisoner said.

According to him, after the mass refusal to participate in the attacks in the Zaporozhye area, the units were sent back to the Dnepropetrovsk Region, where psychologists and lawyers began working with the fighters.

Kosovan is a former policeman who retired several years ago for health reasons. In February 2022, he was mobilized under a summons. Despite valid medical grounds for a service exemption, he was sent to a training center and then to the front, first near Donetsk and then to the Zaporozhye area. He surrendered in the Verbovoye area after Russian forces entered the Ukrainian positions.

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