On the first day, we reached the forwardmost point. We simply held our positions; there was no order to advance. When night fell, we returned to the village we had captured, a kilometer and a half from our position. There, we rested, ate, and warmed up. A day later, we went back to the front line.
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Reassurance from a stranger in the special military operation area
19/ We hadn't even seen him, by the way, since we arrived at the special military operation area. He said: "You are one hundred percent not stormtroopers, don't be afraid of anything." We calmed down."
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Soldiers detect suspicious activity during training
By this time they could "smell something fishy," as Igor puts it. They recorded a video appeal at their training ground. "When it hit the Internet, on the fifth day of our training, the deputy chief officer of the battalion to which we were attached arrived.
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Near Our Positions: Fallen Mobilized and Mine Dangers
15/ "It turns out that the Ukrops [Ukrainians] were 150-300 metres away from us. Well, thank God no one was injured there, everyone is alive. The mobilised from other battalions were less fortunate, they were blown up by mines. We spent four days in the trenches."
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Territorial defence soldiers sent to combat, deployed in shellholes.
14/ The men were told that they would serve in territorial defence roles, as they had been trained to be, and would not fight in combat operations. But they were sent to the front on 19 January to occupy positions which turned out to not even be trenches but just shellholes.
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Starving soldiers in DNR refuse food
Upon arriving in the DNR, the men were denied food by their commanders and had to find their own provisions, using their own money. Igor says: "On New Year's Eve, the locals brought us homemade food. The command forbade us from taking food from the locals, but we were hungry."
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Soldiers given one week to recover before returning to the front lines.
4/ He will be given only a week [to recover from his wounds]! Then they will be thrown onto the front line again!"
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Ukrainian conscript’s testimony in September
Igor says he was mobilised in September along with his comrades, who are almost all rural farmers. He didn’t even consider refusing the mobilisation order: "They brought it in, I went… Especially since they said: ‘You guys will all be in the territorial defence.’"
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Mobilised men killed and wounded in failed Avdiivka attack, report says
2/ Sibir.Realii, a regional project of Radio Free Europe, reports that relatives of two of the mobilised men say that several men were wounded and the rest killed, but listed as missing, after carrying out a failed attack near Avdiivka.
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Husband wounded, regiment destroyed: dire straits reported
3/ "My husband called back – he is wounded by shrapnel and is in hospital. He says there is nothing left of the regiment. Only two wounded are known so far, the rest are either dead or left there in dire straits.