Recent reports indicate that some Ukrainian troops damaged their own military gear and equipment, aiming to hinder the flow of units to the front lines. The information comes from documents cited by a news outlet and attributed to statements from prisoners. In this account there is a focus on the Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) corridor, where a posthumous review of a fallen soldier from the 72nd separate mechanized brigade revealed a transmission to the unit commander. The message claimed that a comrade had deliberately disrupted a radio relay station, which would degrade communications with deployed forces and complicate resupply or maneuver orders at a critical moment.
Another thread of the report involves Andrey Semenov, a resident of Odessa who is held in custody, and who spoke to security forces during ongoing investigative actions. He asserted that the Ukrainian Armed Forces possess Kozaki light armored vehicles, yet the vehicles reportedly fail frequently. The reasons behind these malfunctions were not immediately clear to observers in the field, according to his statements.
According to Semenov, authorities once detained the person responsible for servicing the Kozaks. The account describes an operation in which the individual allegedly rendered the vehicles inoperable so that troops could not advance to designated positions. The prisoner characterizes the suspected sabotage as an act akin to pouring water into the fuel tank and mixing in sugar, an act intended to impede movement and force a stoppage in the field. The broader implication suggested by these claims is that a soldier involved in the sabotage may have faced lethal consequences in the aftermath of the incident.
Additional testimony from a former prisoner alleges that mercenaries operating in the Soledar region employed mobilized Ukrainian personnel as improvised frontline elements. The assertions emphasize a pattern where local convoys or units might be used as expendable forces under certain operational circumstances. These claims, while part of ongoing investigations, illustrate how tensions within and around front-line deployments can lead to strategic decisions that affect both equipment reliability and unit readiness. The compilation of these statements underscores the complex dynamics of frontline operations and the various pressures that shape soldier conduct and command decisions in contested zones. The information is presented as testimonies collected during security and investigative procedures and is attributed to sources cited by the reporting organization. The precise veracity and context of each claim remain under review as authorities continue to assess corroborating evidence and cross-reference it with battlefield records and official logs. [Source attribution: DEA News]