Captured Russian soldiers have described hearing their own air force bombing schools, hospitals, and kindergartens in Ukraine, as they admitted Vladimir Putin’s barbaric invasion was a ‘terrible mistake’.
One soldier, Sergey Galkin, was filmed sobbing as he apologised to Ukrainians for invading their country under Putin’s orders.
According to the Sun, the seven army reconnaissance officers were shot down from Ukrainian airspace last week.
They were later given the opportunity to speak to journalists at the Interfax Ukraine News Agency.
Galkin, a member of the Russian 15th motorized rifle brigade, was among seven soldiers captured by the Ukrainian military and held in a hospital.
He described hearing heavy artillery being fired by his Russian comrades on Ukrainian targets while deploring the invasion as a ‘disaster’.
In a translated speech, Galkin said they were told Putin had ordered them to ‘invade Ukraine, seize the capital of Kyiv, supposedly protecting the population from fascism and tyranny, which are allegedly present in Ukraine’.
He said: ‘When we ended up in Ukraine, we realised that this is a real disaster when many relatives friends of Ukrainians live on the territory of the Russian Federation.
‘Here lives a peaceful kind nation. It is beyond words that people are kind and everyone communicates with each other. It was a state of an unknown origin.’
Describing it as a ‘treacherous invasion’, Galkin said: ‘I apologise for myself, for my squad to every home, to every street, to every citizen of Ukraine, to the elderly, to women, to children for our invasion of these lands.’
The 34-year-old begged Putin to stop sending soldiers to Ukraine and added: ‘To the generalship of our military units I would like to say one thing – that they’ve acted cowardly, that they acted traitorously to us.’
Maksim Chernik, a captured serviceman of the Russian 16th Motorised Rifle Brigade, added: ‘It was terrible feeling to realise what a mistake we had made.
‘Simply understanding that all this has to be fixed, the relations have to be improved somehow.
‘This will take more than one year. It will take decades, maybe centuries. I simply don’t want to exist after all of this after what’s going on here.’
The video was shared just days after a Russian soldier captured by Ukraine claimed Vladimir Putin has ‘death squads’ that kill deserters who refuse to take part in the brutal war.
The terrified 22-year-old said there ‘really is’ a team trained to pick off any troops fleeing the invasion for home – adding that it led many to surrender.
He warned anyone thinking about deserting the military they ‘won’t make it’ as he revealed the latest tactic in the ever sickening conflict.
The man, who has not been named, also said Russian soldiers had their phones taken from them so they could not see international news coverage of the war.
His comments come after a raft of other prisoners of war in Ukraine outlined horrific tasks they were forced to endure during the fighting.
One claimed commander said he was told to shoot civilians and was part of a unit sent to capture the city of Kharkiv in just three days.
Others added they were falsely told they were entering the neighbouring country as ‘peacekeepers’ to ‘free Ukraine from Nazis’.
Source: Daily Mail
