MOSCOW, August 20. /TASS/. Ukraine’s military is sustaining heavy casualties in battles with Russian forces in the Kursk Region, Ukrainian prisoner-of-war (POW) Vitaly said on Tuesday.

The captured Ukrainian soldier said that he had been mobilized and assigned to Ukraine’s 92nd assault brigade as a driver.

"Very heavy casualties. They send people like us [into battle]. They assign an objective and mobilized people like me. They tell us to go to a position. But where must we go? They say we will show you a point and you will go there. People go there and that’s all. I transported them there so many times but none of them returned," the captured Ukrainian soldier said in a video released by Russia’s Defense Ministry.

The Ukrainian POW said that Ukraine’s military command had punished him several times for his refusal to fight.

"I told them that even if you had brought me here, I would not fight anywhere. I said that I would only transport personnel and take them back but would not go to positions, fight or shoot anyone. Sometimes I was placed in a cage and sat there. Now they [Ukrainian troops] have no military commander there: he has been shot dead by his fellow servicemen because of his attitude. I sat in a dog cage a couple of times for refusing to do something," the captured Ukrainian soldier said.