Chaos and surrender: Russian soldiers reveal border defense collapse

The actions of the Ukrainian troops showed an unexpected weakness in the Russian border defense. This is confirmed by the Russians who were taken prisoner after the Ukrainian offensive. The soldiers were imprisoned in the northeastern part of Ukraine and reported the situation at the border in an interview with "The Sunday Times."

One of them, Serhiy Karimov, reported that his senior officer tried to call the battalion commander when their unit came under fire. However, the commander had already fled by that time.

Another prisoner said that they were given the order not to surrender alive to avoid torture. He detonated a grenade, thinking he would die, but was saved by a Ukrainian doctor.

A border guard recounted that his unit's commanders fled as soon as the Ukrainian troops approached.

According to another prisoner, when he and other captives were transported to the prisons, the Ukrainian soldiers escorting them stopped at a store "to buy" water, cookies, and cigarettes with their own money. "We were starving," the prisoner reported. "That cake was like manna from heaven for us," he added.

The prisoners were given clean clothes and shoes on arrival. "We had clean plates to eat from," one of the captives said. "The Sunday Times" reports that they go for a walk twice a day. They read and play chess. They are also properly fed. On the day of the meeting with the newspaper's reporter, they were served oatmeal for breakfast and vegetable soup with bread for lunch.

The Russian soldiers also admitted that they had access to television. "We watch a lot of news. It's in Ukrainian, but I understand most of it," he added.