Roman Kalinichenko surrendered to the Russian forces of Battlegroup Yug on January 6 at the Vremevsky salient in the Zaporozhye area.
Kalinichenko spoke about the
massive losses that his unit suffered.
According to him, the
corpses of Ukrainian soldiers lie even in trenches and bunkers.
"I was situated in a lookout with corpses of our [guys]. It's a small trench, no doors, and there were two corpses inside – they were decomposing, no one even removed them, and a third one was thrown on top at random. I didn't step outside because I knew if I did go out, if I raised my head – I would end up lying there with them. You can only go out at night. I ate meals, looking at these corpses, so my psychological state is not so well right now," he explained.
Kalinichenko also mentioned that of over 70 men in his unit on January 1, only 22 remained alive by January 6 when he surrendered.
According to him, the Ukrainian military command won't remove the dead bodies because they want to avoid compensating their relatives. As such, they pocket this money earmarked for the deceased troops via
corrupt schemes.
Kalinichenko also shared a story about a fellow soldier, who refused to fight and committed suicide, so the unit's command chalked it up to battle losses.
Kalinichenko added that when he refused to go on a mission, the commander threatened to shoot him and count it as a combat loss as well.
A Russian fighter with the call sign
Khazar, working with
Ukrainian POWs, explained to
Sputnik that such practices by Ukrainian commanders are in no way surprising.
"Suicide in a unit is always a huge scandal. During peacetime, this would suffice as a reason to immediately dismiss a number of officers, including the commander. Therefore, it's not surprising, then, that they choose to classify any suicide as a combat loss, particularly given the already staggering number of combat losses in the battalion where Roman served," he noted.