Russia is allegedly grappling with widespread mutiny as large numbers of troops have been “disappearing en mass” from the Kherson region, according to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian resistance group Atesh – the Crimean Tartar for “fire” – has been monitoring Russian activity in the occupied region since the start of the invasion in 2022.
In its latest Telegram update, the group alleged large groups of soldiers had “willfully” left the front and fled to nearby regions to avoid being sent off to fight.
They said: “Russian soldiers are disappearing en masse in the Kherson region.
“According to official reports received by the Russian Armed Forces group ‘Dnepr’, we learned that the orcs refuse to carry out combat missions and willfully leave their places of temporary deployment.”
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The Ukrainian resistance group cited reports from locals suggesting some of the soldiers were likely prisoners brought in to fight on behalf of Vladimir Putin.
They added: “These soldiers are located in vacant abandoned houses. Most of them have multiple tattoos on their body. The local population believes that these are people who were previously in prison.”
Kherson was a fighting hotspot in the early stages of the Russian invasion but has seen little military advancement since Kyiv secured a major victory in the area in the autumn of 2022.
While Russia has been engaging Ukraine in other occupied regions, Moscow has intensified its efforts to fully annex the local population into the Russian system.
Moscow has successfully imposed its passports on nearly the entire population of occupied Ukraine by making it impossible to survive without them.
Every passport and birth certificate issued also makes it harder for Ukraine to reclaim its lost land and children, and each new citizen allows Russia to claim a right – however falsely – to defend its own people against a hostile neighbour.
