The testimony of the Ukrainian veteran taken prisoner by his own comrades after being forced by the Russians

An Ukrainian veteran from the occupied territories offered an earthquake testimony of how he was forced to fight on Russia and then he was taken prisoner, reports Euromaidan Press.

The testimony of soldier Pavlo Pșenicini, offered in an interview with the Ukrainian portal Hromadske highlights the way Russia uses occupation to force residents to fight in the war against their own country.

The veteran enrolled in the Ukrainian weapon in 2018, but not from patriotism, but purely economic reasons, against the background of unemployment.

“There were no jobs,” he said.

He was sent near AVDIIVKA, and from his post he could see both airports in Donețk. The war seemed managing at the time. It all changed on February 24, 2019.

On that day, Ukrainian sniper near Piski killed two Russian soldiers, exposing Ukrainian positions. A week later came and respond. The bullet of a Russian sniper was on the back in the back, while his comrade was shot dead.

He survived, dragged until he arrived in a safe place, and eventually managed to return home to the south of the Herson region with an invalidity certificate and two military medals.

He thought he was over for the war for him.

Monitored by occupation authorities

After the Russian forces occupied Kalaanceak, the Herson region, in February 2022, the neighbors quickly identified the local veteran for authorities.

“They are good neighbors,” he says bitterly mixed with irony.

The first occupants were not even Russians, but soldiers from Daghestan and other nationalities who were just talking Russian, he says. But they were informed: so they searched the apartment and confiscated his veteran documents, the invalidity certificate and the medals.

Monthly, rotations were held and other units arrived.

“They came in waves, they could hit or leave you alone, they were walking around the house, they were stepping everywhere,” Pșenicini recalled. “I was constant in their visual field.”

Then, during a visit, while his newborn daughter was sleeping nearby, the Russian soldiers fired two fires in the ceiling.

“You killed our people,” they said,

Pșenicini learned not to contradict them.

“You can't prove them anything,” he explained. “There was no point in saying something, you could worsen your situation.”

Employee attempts

The soldier tried to run twice.

The first attempt took place eight months after the birth of his daughter, in June 2022. On the border, the guards did not let them pass, as they did not have a birth certificate.

Six months later, the Russian police and child protection services began to visit them. They asked why the little girl has no Russian acts and who her parents were.

“They even wanted to take the child – simply to take it and take it somewhere,” said the veteran.

Terrified by the thought of losing his daughter, the wife obtained Russian birthdays for the child. They tried to leave again, this time through Lithuania. But the Lithuanian border guards did not allow them to pass for the same reason: they had Ukrainian passports, and the Russian birth certified child.

Prison or front

In September 2024, the police appeared: someone had stolen tools and appliances from the village. They had heard that a truck had delivered things to Pșenicini's house the day before. Could they search it?

While he opened the first room for inspection, the officers positioned themselves near the second room. “While I was opening the second, they were already shouting:” I found everything. There is no need to look! “

They took out a huge bag with grass, marijuana, and brought it to the house, ”he remembers.

Then, as a signal, two witnesses left the police car.

The trial spread for a few months and the sentence was to be pronounced on May 29, 2025. The punishment: 12 years in prison.

But, while the judge read the sentence, officials of the military commissioner entered the courtroom.

“Ready, this is your prison. You go to the army,” they announced.

Brutal training conditions

At the Makiivka training center, former prisoners, pardoned in exchange for survival, served as instructors. These veterans of the “storm Z” had already proved their value and had lived to tell about it.

The training has been focused on the basic assault tactics: how to storm the buildings, to pull among the ruins, to apply garages, to identify the traps. But the real lesson was the resistance. Twenty kilometers daily marches on extreme heat, minimum water rations, constant physical stress.

Purpose: to prepare the soldiers for the deprivations they would face on the front.

Who were the other recruits? A painted mixture that saw Russia's despair after new recruits.

Volunteers who had fought in the separatist militias, alcoholics who signed the contracts for drinking and did not remember them. Residents of other busy territories that had been confronted with similar choices: prison or front.

The most desperate cases served as human mines detectors. Russia undressed the recalcitrant soldiers of armor and weapons, showed them a target and promised to return their equipment if they survived.

However, the big shock was the foreign fighters – Somali and others – who showed an almost inhuman indifference to the victims.

When a mortar howitzer killed a Somali right in front of the group, the others simply bypassed the body and continued to advance.

“Ready, he is dead. They bypassed him, they went on. And in general, they do not care. They go specially there to perform the task. That's everything.”

On the front

After six weeks of training, the new soldier received orders. Officials have confiscated phones, bank cards, whatever linked to the soldiers to their previous lives. Then followed the trip to AVDIIVKA, in the Donetk region.

The situation of the supply was immediately clear.

“They offered very little water – for three people a day a bottle of maximum and a half, and not always full,” he says.

Soldiers near the villages or rivers could sometimes find additional water sources. Those in isolated positions in the forest simply had no resources.

The orders? Keep the positions 250 meters away from each other, along the forest strips. Shoot anyone who is approaching, unless radio communications give another order.

capturing

When the fighters of the Freedom Battalion approached their forest position near Aviivka, Pșenicini and his partner were following the standard orders: they shot anyone approaching their sector, unless they authorized radio communications not to do so.

His partner immediately took his rifle and aimed at the approaching silhouettes. But he quickly evaluated the situation – they were surrounded and overcome in the armament.

Put the rifle down, why should we shoot now? “He told his comrade, recognizing the uselessness of resistance.” I will not even have time to target, whether they are ours or not. “

Initially, Pșenişni could not figure out who was approaching their trenches. “Well, maybe ours, maybe they come from somewhere. Russians, I think, what's the difference?” He remembered that it came to mind.

The soldiers shouted something, but he could not immediately recognize their identification signs. Only when he could clearly see their uniforms recognized.

“Then I look, pixel camouflage, and say,” Okraine, give us water! “, He cried.

The Ukrainian soldiers were shocked to discover that they had captured a veteran. One of them asked: “What do you think your boys would say to you if you found out that you were here now?”

The way in which the Ukrainian soldiers treated him as a prisoner of war surprised.

“I imagined that I will be tied somewhere, and here it is completely different. And they give us food … and I make coffee,” he confessed. “I was glad that I was taught-otherwise in a few days I would have simply died of dehydration.”

All men under 30 years of occupied territories risk being recruited for military service in Russia. Some serve in the army, others are sent to battle areas.

Those who initially refuse are made to believe that they will be left alone. They are allowed to live normally for weeks, even to go shopping. Just when I think they have escaped the fighting debt, they arrive orders: Join the assault units or face the consequences.

“If they will conquer the territories, then no one will have a choice,” says the veteran.