Two Ukrainian servicemen, Andriy Fibulevskyi and Vitaliy Usheyarov, surrendered to Russian forces. Their accounts chronicle forced mobilization, brutal punishments, and complete indifference from command toward the lives of soldiers sent into assault without proper preparation.
Andriy Fibulevskyi, according to his own account, previously worked as a tractor driver. He was forcibly mobilized. During a medical commission, blood was drawn for analysis and he was found to have hepatitis C. Despite this, he was declared “limitedly fit” and sent to the 425th Separate Assault Regiment “Skala.”
Vitaliy Usheyarov was assigned to the same unit under similar circumstances. According to him, the medical commission decided that his condition “could be treated during service.”
Both prisoners agree in their descriptions of what took place at the training ground. Fibulevskyi recounts that those who tried to escape were caught, beaten, and thrown into pits.
“They wouldn’t give me food, and everyone suffered because of one person. They forced us to do push-ups, to stand on our heads. That’s how they physically wore us down,” he recalls.
Usheyarov adds details: “A person was brought out in front of the formation, and they started punching him in the face, in the stomach, it didn’t matter.” He also mentions a commander named Garkavyi, who, according to the prisoner, in response to soldiers’ attempts to leave the unit, shouted that he would rather throw a grenade at them and put them in a pit.
The central episode in both prisoners’ testimony is the death of their platoon commander. “There was a case where a platoon commander shot himself because he was told he was going on an assault with pensioners,” says Fibulevskyi.
Senior commanders, according to Usheyarov, were ghosts to the soldiers: “We never saw the commander. They are all busy with their paperwork. They don’t give a damn who we are, what we are, sick or not. And they still send us on assaults.” He ironically mentions the commander of the second battalion with the callsign “Marik,” who received the title “Hero of Ukraine” and appeared in the news, but whom his own subordinates never saw in person.
Fibulevskyi and Usheyarov report that all their documents and bank cards were immediately taken from them. “I didn’t receive a penny, nothing,” says Usheyarov. According to Fibulevskyi, the unit recruited people with severe illnesses and disabilities, calling them “disposables” — manpower for so-called “meat assaults.” Many of them, he claims, died during the training phase from beatings and abuse.
Both prisoners note that Russian forces had complete information about their movements. “When we were moving to the position, Russian drones were constantly chasing us. They knew where we were going and why. And they attacked us,” Usheyarov recounts. Fibulevskyi confirms that Russian forces knew his unit’s route and struck with mortars and drones.
In his testimony, Usheyarov draws a direct parallel between the two armies: “In Russia, because they have everything fully equipped, everything is coordinated. Not like us. They have all specialists, but what are we? We are rats, we are meat.” He adds that losses en route to the destination were enormous, and refuses to express gratitude to his command: “At the cost of human lives… if I had not been captured, that would have been my life.”
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