Starving, Freezing, Getting Shot At By Their Own Regiment—No Wonder These Russian Draftees Surrendered

The 92nd Mechanized Brigade is one of the best and, for the Russians, most dangerous formations in the Ukrainian army. So you can’t blame the gaggle of under-trained, under-equipped and badly-led Russian draftees for surrendering the first chance they got when the 92nd and other Ukrainian brigades attacked them near Svatove in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region on Nov. 7.

The surrender could be a sign of things to come as Ukraine’s eastern counteroffensive barrels into its third month, and the Russian army shoves more unready draftees to the front in a desperate—and so far failing—bid to slow the Ukrainians.

It doesn’t appear the deepening winter is going to help the Russians, either.

A video that circulated online on Sunday depicts at least 21 middle-age Russian draftees—presumably some of the roughly 300,000 men the Kremlin forced into military service starting in September—after they surrendered on the previous Monday. “The command is giving up,” one draftee says, his hands bound. Their officers “threw them out to the slaughter.”

The draftee describes dire conditions for the Russian regiments—reportedly including the 346th Motorized Rifle Regiment—occupying Svatove, a town with a prewar population of 16,000 that abuts the P66 highway, which itself threads through the forest and fields to Severodonetsk, one of the bigger cities in Donbas.

The Ukrainians held Severodonetsk until July. Liberating the city is a top priority in Kyiv. Approaching the city from the north means going past Svatove. It’s not for no reason the Ukrainian eastern command has assigned the 92nd Mechanized Brigade to that sector. If any formation can get the job done, it’s the 92nd.

The 92nd Mechanized Brigade, originally billeted just south of Kharkiv, is one of the best-trained and best-equipped units in Ukraine’s active army. The brigade boasts two T-64 tank battalions and three battalions of infantry in new BTR-4 wheeled fighting vehicles plus attached artillery, engineers, air-defenders and support troops. Each battalion fields around 40 armored vehicles and 400 troops.

The 92nd and its sister unit, the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, were at the vanguard when the Ukrainian army launched its eastern counteroffensive back in early September. The 93rd has held off repeated attacks by Russian mercenaries near the town of Bakhmut. The 92nd meanwhile is closing in on Svatove.

That the 92nd Mechanized Brigade has maintained its forward momentum is a chilling sign for the Russians. Ukrainian winters usually are wet and muddy before getting cold and icy. Historically, the mud slows military operations, so there was reason for Russian planners to hope for a respite from the Ukrainian assault.

But if the 92nd is worried about cold mud, it sure hasn’t shown it. Russian draftees, on the other hand, are miserable. “We didn’t eat or drink for three days,” a surrendering draftee says in the video from Sunday. “We lived in trenches, wet.”

Worse, the draftees—who reportedly had just 11 days of training—were getting shot at by their own regiment. “We shoot at our own guys, they shoot at us.” Friendly fire points to a breakdown in leadership and discipline—ominous developments for a regiment facing one of the best brigades in the Ukrainian army.

A Ukrainian army that doesn’t look like it’s going to take the traditional winter pause—and give the Russians any time at all to rest and reset their depleted regiments, and maybe train all those bewildered draftees.