Ukraine has captured greater than 150 Russian prisoners of warfare on some days within the cross-border army operation {that a} key civilian official mentioned was the primary of “several stages” in taking the struggle to Moscow.
Oleksii Drozdenko, the top of the army administration within the Ukrainian metropolis of Sumy, mentioned the assault had fared higher than anticipated and there had been solely 15 casualties needing hospital therapy on the primary day.
“Sometimes there are more than 100 or 150 prisoners of war a day,” Drozdenko mentioned. Lots of the Russian troops who’ve been guarding the border are younger conscripts. “They do not want to fight us,” he added.
A number of movies have circulated of Ukrainians capturing prisoners of warfare, together with on the border within the first hours of the incursion on Tuesday 6 August. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has mentioned Kyiv is rising its “exchange fund” to swap for PoWs held by Russia.
Sumy is the Ukrainian metropolis closest to the incursion and Drozdenko mentioned he had been intently concerned within the operation’s planning however had been sworn to secrecy, zipping his lips in a gesture to explain the significance of operational safety earlier than the shock assault.
Different native civilian leaders, notably the Sumy area’s governor, Volodymyr Artyukh, have mentioned they weren’t warned prematurely, suggesting Drozdenko was in a trusted circle.
The town official, a Zelenskiy appointee who’s the town’s de facto mayor after the earlier incumbent was arrested and charged for allegedly receiving a bribe final autumn, mentioned he couldn’t say an excessive amount of in regards to the preparations for the incursion a fortnight in the past as a result of there was extra to return.
“We see only part of this operation, in the future we will see several stages,” Drozdenko mentioned, characterising the incursion as “not like previous raids” from Ukraine into Belgorod oblast to the east, which have been largely led by anti-Kremlin Russian teams.
Although Drozdenko wouldn’t supply any extra info, there are indicators that Ukraine has launched a brand new tactic to attempt to acquire extra Russian territory. On Sunday morning Ukraine’s air drive launched a video of a gap being blown in a bridge at Zvannoe, over the Seym River inside Kursk province.
A few days earlier one other bridge over the Seym had been severed after a Ukrainian air assault, north of the village of Glushkovo, which is close to the frontline of the incursion and topic to a civilian evacuation order by Russian authorities.
Although Ukraine has not spelled out its intentions, knocking out the three bridges over the Seym at Glushkovo, Zvannoe and Karyzh would complicate Russian reinforcement of a pocket of land to the west of the present incursion space and enhance Ukraine’s prospects of seizing the land if its progress continues.
On the finish of final week, Sumy and different neighbouring areas organised a humanitarian transport of meals and drugs to Russian civilians within the occupied space, together with from “our own food stores”, Drozdenko mentioned. No Russian civilians had fled throughout the border to turn into refugees in Ukraine, he mentioned.
A part of Drozdenko’s function was to make sure hospitals in Sumy have been able to obtain casualties as soon as the incursion began. “There is an unexpectedly low amount of wounded coming from this operation into the hospitals,” the official mentioned.
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“On the first day of the operation, there were only 15 casualties. Sixty, seventy per cent of them were very light, caused by bomb damage, shrapnel,” he added, reflecting the truth that the cross-border assault was a whole shock to the Kremlin, which believed Ukraine would struggle to defend its personal territory.
On the finish of final week, civilians in Sumy have been requested to donate O-negative blood, appropriate for emergency transfusions for any blood kind. The necessity was met “in one hour”, the official mentioned, which “confirms that our people support this operation”.
Sumy metropolis, a quiet provincial capital in north-east Ukraine with a inhabitants of about 250,000, had not been concerned within the combating because the determined early days of the warfare when it was surrounded and defended by a civilian militia, of which Drozdenko was half.
However the incursion has introduced the warfare again to Sumy and the border areas to the north, with renewed air, missile and artillery strikes. “When we speak about seven months of 2024, January to July, there were approximately 400 strikes to border areas. But last week we had 200 strikes in only one week,” the official mentioned.
A number of thousand have fled the frontline areas, which have been topic to a compulsory evacuation as much as 10km (6.2 miles) from the border in affected areas. Drozdenko mentioned these fleeing would attempt to prepare their very own lodging or be housed in hostels within the metropolis.
Sumy has been protected by air defence, with interceptions and launches heard and seen from the town centre over the past week. On Saturday morning one ballistic missile received by and landed in a road, damaging about 15 civilian vehicles and wounding two folks, though not severely.
Folks in Sumy have been resilient regardless of the most recent bombing, Drozdenko mentioned, as a result of the town had fought off the preliminary Russian invasion in March 2022, at a time when the common military was 60 miles away.
Highlighting his personal expertise, he mentioned: “Back then I was not feeling that optimistic. We took part in street fighting. I was almost nearly killed twice. It was very scary being shot at by a BTR [Russian armoured personnel carrier]. Now I’m not scared of anything.”
