Kursk operation: Military analyst reveals scale of Russian soldier captures
Photo: Ukrainian Armed Forces could captured about 2500 Russians in the Kursk region (Russian media)
During the operation in the Kursk region, Ukrainian Defense Forces captured hundreds, possibly even thousands of Russian soldiers. Experts estimate the number of prisoners to have reached 2,500, according to the RBC-Ukraine's article "Kursk offensive could push Russia to speed up prisoners-of-war exchanges."
With the advance of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region, the exchange pool has begun to grow rapidly. In the early days of the operation, videos surfaced showing Russian soldiers surrendering. In some cases, this occurred on a mass scale.
There is also information that Russian conscripts were repeatedly captured. Russian opposition media outlets "Important Stories" and "Agency" identified at least 22 individuals who lost contact in the early days of the Ukrainian offensive. These were soldiers of the 488th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment of the Russian Federation, conscripts from the Kostroma, Vologda, and Tyumen regions, the Republic of Komi, and other areas.
According to The Independent, citing an unnamed Ukrainian colonel, Ukrainian forces have captured about 2,000 Russian soldiers since the start of the operation in the Kursk region. Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military-political observer for the Information Resistance group, believes that this number may be even higher.
"They (The Independent - ed.) were a little late with their information. The number of captured Russians is now almost 2,500," he told RBC-Ukraine.
The Independent suggests that replenishing the exchange pool was one of Ukraine's goals in the operation. However, Kovalenko believes that such a large-scale operation could not have been launched solely for the purpose of expanding the exchange pool.
"A large number of forces and means are involved, and we are also suffering losses. And our military is being captured, much less than the Russians, in a sense, hundreds of times less. Setting the task of taking as many prisoners as possible is a very risky mission. If something goes wrong, the operation will fail. No one expected them to surrender en masse," the expert noted.
Kursk operation
On August 6, the Ukrainian Defense Forces began an offensive operation in the Kursk region's border areas. According to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukrainian forces now control 82 settlements.
Ukrainian troops managed to push the enemy out of the city of Sudzha. In this settlement, there are several important facilities, including a gas metering station through which Russian gas transits to Europe via Ukraine.
Recently, Ukrainian troops carried out the largest mass capture of enemy forces. According to RBC-Ukraine sources in the special services, SSU fighters captured 102 Russian military personnel. Among them were soldiers from the aforementioned 488th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment and soldiers of Kadyrov's Akhmat unit.
