Russians are employing this dastardly new technology called “mines” which no army on earth has encountered before, least of all those of the NATO members like France, Germany and the UK.
They say Russian POWs are complaining about lack of training, though they of course provide no source for this except for a general handwave of “plenty of interviewed.” Others have posted a lot of different sources (with references!) which claim the Ukrainians are generally ill-equipped and barely-trained.
this is why you should never take much stock from what POWs say while in their enemy’s custody. from neither Ukrainian nor Russian POWs. It’s easy to be like “oh, but they should know! they’re first-hand witnesses of what they’re talking about!” and that can be true but there’s no way of knowing if they’ve been threatened to say what they said, or if their words have been taken out of context, etc.
If a thousand POWs say nothing, but a single one says “Oh yeah, the Russian/Ukrainian Army actually is doing these horrific acts, I totes saw them doing it, they ordered me to do it, and uhh they’re about to collapse!” then that singular opinion will be shouted from the rooftops and it will be generalized and taken as gospel by the opposing side. Propaganda is about emphasising certain facts or opinions over others, even if those certain facts or opinions are held by a tiny minority and are patently false.
this is why you should never take much stock from what POWs say while in their enemy’s custody. from neither Ukrainian nor Russian POWs. It’s easy to be like “oh, but they should know! they’re first-hand witnesses of what they’re talking about!” and that can be true but there’s no way of knowing if they’ve been threatened to say what they said, or if their words have been taken out of context, etc.
If a thousand POWs say nothing, but a single one says “Oh yeah, the Russian/Ukrainian Army actually is doing these horrific acts, I totes saw them doing it, they ordered me to do it, and uhh they’re about to collapse!” then that singular opinion will be shouted from the rooftops and it will be generalized and taken as gospel by the opposing side. Propaganda is about emphasising certain facts or opinions over others, even if those certain facts or opinions are held by a tiny minority and are patently false.