MOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/. Ukrainian armed forces serviceman Andrey Anisimov, recently captured in the Kursk Region, has revealed that in order to prevent mass desertions, commanding officers do not tell Ukrainian soldiers they are being deployed to the Kursk Region.

"They sent us there just like cannon fodder. They said we would serve near the Russian border. That's all they told us. He [the commander] definitely knew [that the troops were being sent to the Kursk Region]. But he never told us that. Apparently, they are afraid that we will run away," the POW said in a video distributed by the Russian Defense Ministry.

Anisimov also gave a first-hand account of how a group of servicemen who refused to go to the Kursk Region were executed by "their own guys."