Fetch your captured sons,
amid increasing reports of invaders being in “complete disarray”, and bickering soldiers “crying in combat”.
Voice recordings obtained by a UK intelligence company have also revealed radio messages suggesting troops are refusing to obey orders to shell Ukrainian towns, and complaining about a lack of fuel and food.
Some units have surrendered easily while others abandoned the battlefield to walk home.
Ukraine has now invited the mothers of captured Russian troops to come and collect their sons in a bid to embarrass Moscow and undermine public support at home for the invasion.
The defence ministry has published phone numbers and an email address to provide information about captured invaders. In a statement it said: “You will be received and taken to Kyiv where your son will be returned to you. Unlike Putin’s fascists, we Ukrainians are not waging war against mothers and their captured children.” Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said fed-up Russian troops were dumping expensive kit after realising Putin’s claim about a war of liberation was a lie.
Prisoners described how they were used like cannon fodder by commanders who threw them into battle against “peaceful people defending their territory” as Putin’s forces continue to take heavy losses.
“This is not our war. Mothers and wives, collect your husbands. There is no need to be here,” one injured soldier was filmed saying, in front of a Ukrainian flag. Other footage shows soldiers deserting rather than attacking civilians, while in a text message, one man tells his mother he wanted to “kill himself”.
More video showed a handcuffed Russian prisoner crying, and saying: “They don’t even pick up the corpses. There are no funerals.”
Ukraine says Russia has already lost more than 6,000 soldiers – some of its fastest losses since the Second World War, if
‘They don’t even pick up the corpses...there are no funerals’
the figure proves accurate. Despot Putin had plotted a quick victory but instead his duped troops have met with stiff resistance. Russia says some 498 Russian troops have been killed, with 1,597 wounded.
In another day of frantic developments