Russian POWs Describe "the Animal Nightmare" of Fighting In Ukraine

Russian POWs captured during fighting around Avdiivka mostly claim to have become disoriented in the dark and mistakenly wandered into Ukrainian lines. This is a common excuse because they could later be shot for voluntarily surrendering if they are returned to Russia. 

They know why their colleagues are dying in droves but feel helpless to protest. JL 

Marcus Walker and Ievgeniia Sivorka report in the Wall Street Journal:

Combat at Avdiivka was “an animal nightmare.” The Ukrainians call the Russian assaults “meat waves.” Losses are blamed on commanders’ blunt tactic of frontal assaults and on the men’s lack of training. “The captain said we fulfilled our goal. But only 35 out of 100 men came back. And that was just on one day.” Russian commanders’ insistence on sending wounded men back to the front is another reason for low morale. Russian soldiers are dying because they are ordered to attack positions where they have no protection from Ukrainian fire even if they succeed. Commanders are under orders from higher up.

As snow fell silently in a secret location in eastern Ukraine, the Russian infantrymen huddled on a garage floor, their hands dirty and their faces exhausted. 

The men had been captured by Ukrainian troops during intense fighting for the city of Avdiivka. Now they waited to be sent to prisoner-of-war facilities, far from the front line.

Moscow’s fall offensive in Ukraine, of which Avdiivka is the primary target, is resulting in a steady flow of Russian POWs. Often, the captured men say they got lost and ended up among Ukrainians by mistake. Voluntary surrender is a crime in Russia. 

Many of their comrades were less fortunate. Fields and factory districts around Avdiivka are littered with dead Russian infantry, sent to attack Ukrainian positions in costly frontal assaults. 

Russia is accepting high casualties as the price of advancing. Its troops are pushing gradually into Avdiivka’s outskirts, while also trying to encircle it by taking the surrounding countryside. 

The Ukrainians call the Russian assaults “meat waves.” The defenders inflict casualties with artillery, drones, mines and tanks, but they are struggling to cope with the Russians’ sheer numbers. Kyiv estimates that Russia currently has over 400,000 troops in Ukraine. Moscow has never disclosed its troop numbers.

If Russia takes Avdiivka, it could open up further local advances in the eastern Donetsk region. It would also be a propaganda win for President Vladimir Putin, allowing him to claim that momentum is back with Moscow after Ukraine’s counteroffensive this summer couldn’t achieve a breakthrough. 

The POWs in the makeshift holding facility, mostly in their 30s and 40s, face an indeterminate confinement. Prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine have stalled in recent months.

Yet some of the Russians sitting in the garage also expressed relief. The carnage of Avdiivka was over for them. Several soldiers volunteered to talk to The Wall Street Journal. They described their motivations for joining the Russian army fighting in Ukraine, their brief training and their units’ low morale after being ordered to conduct costly assaults. The Journal verified their identities and has withheld their surnames.

Combat at Avdiivka was “an animal nightmare,” said Sergei, a former factory worker from Perm near the Ural Mountains who signed up in October for money. His old job paid 30,000 rubles a month, he said, or about $340. The army offered him 100,000. 

Training consisted mostly of menial chores such as picking up branches, he said. Combat preparation consisted of firing two magazines’ worth of ammunition from an assault rifle, he said, and mostly theoretical first-aid lessons. 

He didn’t expect to be at the front line. He thought he would only be driving trucks in the rear, he said. 

Sent straight to Avdiivka, his unit was ordered to attack Ukrainian-held tree lines on the city’s northern flank. But the assault was driven back by Ukrainian armored vehicles. The unit retreated to its starting position, leaving dead men strewn across the muddy fields.

Sergei was wounded but was soon sent back to the front line. In late November, he was captured while disoriented, he said. “I felt relieved. I don’t want to see this nightmare anymore.” His family hasn’t seen any of his promised pay yet, he said. The Ukrainians let him and other POWs phone home.

Pavel was drafted in late 2022, during Putin’s first big wave of conscription to bolster Russian forces in Ukraine, which were on the retreat at the time. “My choice was either to come here or face a fine or prison,” said the former machine-tool operator from Siberia.

Tactical training consisted of charging across a field, in the style of Soviet-era World War II movies in which troops shout “for Stalin!,” said Pavel.

He spent many months in the rear in northeastern Ukraine. He saw little action but came to fear large Ukrainian drones that buzz unseen in the night, which Russians have dubbed “Baba Yaga”—an evil witch in Eastern European folk tales.

 

This fall, Pavel’s unit was sent to Avdiivka and told they were now assault troops. 

His company was ordered to cross the fiercely contested train tracks north of the city and take some trenches, he said. Many of their vehicles were knocked out by artillery well before they reached the Ukrainian position. Russian infantry fell dead and wounded in the mud. The unit took and held the trenches, taking more casualties, before being relieved.

“The captain said we fulfilled our goal. But how can you say that if only 35 out of 100 men came back?” said Pavel. “And that was just on one day.” He blamed the losses on commanders’ blunt tactic of frontal assaults and on the men’s lack of training. “To become real assault troops takes work and a lot of time,” he said. 

Russian authorities have disclosed very little information about the heavy casualties in the war, noted Pavel. “Now I saw them with my own eyes.” 

One night his depleted company was sent back to the contested area near the train tracks to stabilize the Russian position. He was ordered to help collect some wounded men. He said he and another man lost their way and ended up at a Ukrainian-held tree line. “I thought this is the end. We went to ground and shouted ‘don’t shoot!’” he said. The Ukrainian soldiers told them they were very lucky men: They had just wandered through a minefield.

Russian commanders’ insistence on sending wounded men back to the front is another reason for low morale, said Andrei, who was also taken prisoner north of Avdiivka. 

Russian soldiers are dying because they are ordered to attack positions where they have no protection from Ukrainian fire even if they succeed, he said. But commanders are under orders from higher up, he said. 

“If you don’t follow an order, you will face either a long time in prison or you’ll be shot,” he said.

Andrei, a former bank worker, said he volunteered for the army because many of his relatives had served. He thought he would be in a reserve unit because he has a heart condition but instead was sent to the front line. 

Soon he found himself at Avdiivka, advancing in an armored vehicle with 11 other men when it hit a mine. Half of the men were killed. He was badly concussed. He lay there all night until he found the energy to stagger back to base, he said. After three weeks’ rest, he was back in a trench, where men around him were being killed by shelling. They withdrew.

“I got lost,” he said. “I saw two soldiers and asked for water. They were Ukrainian.” 

The losses on both sides are “unjustified,” Andrei said, calling it a war between brothers. It is a description that Ukrainians, after years of Russian efforts to control, invade and subjugate them, decidedly reject.