Old weapons, poor food supplies. The defenders from Donbas do not have suitable training, they prefer to give up the opportunity – HNonline.sk

Military conscripts from the Russian-backed Ukrainian region of Donbas are being sent to the front lines against Ukrainian troops without training, with only a little food and water, inadequately armed. The report was brought by Reuters, for which six people in the separatist region confirmed it. Ignorance of the use of the weapon The Agency verified the identity of these sources. According to the agency, new statements about the deployment of insufficiently trained and ill-equipped soldiers are new indications of the overloaded military resources available to the Kremlin more than a month after the war in Ukraine. During the war, Moscow troops ran into logistical problems and encountered stiff resistance from Ukrainians. One of the people who testified to Reuters is a student who was called to fight in late February. A comrade-in-arms told him to prepare to repel an attack by Ukrainian forces in the southwest of Donbas. However, according to the agency, the student stated that he could not even shoot from an automatic weapon. The student and his unit eventually returned fire and managed to avoid capture, but later suffered injuries during the fighting. Old armaments The Donbas Armed Forces are fighting alongside Russian soldiers, but they are not part of the Russian Armed Forces, which have different rules for sending troops into battle. They issued Mosin-type rifles to several Donbao prisoners, Reuters writes. These rifles were developed at the end of the 19th century and ceased production several decades ago, according to the testimony of three people who saw abductors from this separatist region. Donbas fighters with the mentioned submachine guns were also seen in pictures shared on social networks, the authenticity of which, however, the agency was not able to independently verify. Several sources, including the mentioned student, stated that due to the lack of water supplies, they were forced to drink water that was not drinkable, for example from a stinking pond. They refused to fight Some Donbas detainees were given a very dangerous task – to attract enemy fire so that other units could identify Ukrainian positions and bomb them, according to one of the sources, as well as video evidence from a prisoner of war published by Ukrainian forces. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on the issue of the treatment and low morale of Donbas recruits, it was a question for the Donetsk People’s Republic, a self-proclaimed separatist entity in Donbas. The Russian Ministry of Defense did not respond to the request for comment, as did the administration of the republic and the Donetsk Armed Forces, Reuters writes. After being pushed to the front line near the port city of Mariupol, the scene of the heaviest fighting, a group of about 135 Donbas recruits dropped their weapons and refused to continue fighting. This was confirmed to Reuters by Veronika, whose husband was among these abductors. “We refuse (fight),” wrote one of the defenders from the same group to his partner Marine in a text message. Reuters verified the report. Both women said that the men’s military commanders were held in the pub for punishment and verbally threatened them with retaliation. However, they were subsequently released, removed from the front line and housed in abandoned houses, Veronika said. The Kremlin and separatists did not answer Reuters’ questions about the incident.