Ukraine says more than 100 Russians surrendered in one fell swoop in Kursk

A caption on the video said that the Russian soldiers had been abandoned by their commanders, claiming that the latter had fled to avoid capture themselves.

Several images posted by the agency on Thursday showed a large number of blindfolded men being held in a tunnel by Ukrainian troops.

“I want to live,” said the soldiers were from Russia’s 488th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment and Chechen special forces.

Ukrainian media cited an anonymous source in Ukraine’s intelligence services as saying that the agency’s special forces unit had stormed a “concrete and well-fortified” Russian base in Kursk.

The Kremlin equipped the fortress with underground communications, personal quarters, a canteen, an armory and a bathroom, Ukrainian media Pravda reported.

The reports come as Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky told President Volodymyr Zelenskyi at a briefing on Wednesday that more than 100 Russian soldiers had been captured that day.

Dmytro Lubinets, the human rights commissioner of the Ukrainian parliament, said on Thursday that Russia had initiated discussions on the exchange of prisoners.

That would be a marked change from Russia’s position in May, when its human rights commissioner, Tatyana Moskalkova, said exchanges with Ukraine had been blocked for several months.

At the time, she blamed Kiev for what she called “exaggerated demands”. Moskalkova did not confirm whether Russia has returned to the negotiating table.

Ukraine has not officially said exactly how many Russian troops it has taken captive since it launched its surprise attack on August 6, but told the Financial Times the number was in the “hundreds”.

Kiev said a large number of its prisoners taken at Kursk were Russian conscripts – young men made to serve a year of compulsory military service – calling into question Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s vow not to send any of them into direct combat.

The I Want to Live project has repeatedly posted videos of Russian POWs captured at Kursk, including images of what it said were Chechen troops blindfolded.

Ukraine claimed on Monday that it had seized nearly 400 square miles of Russian territory in a matter of days. He later said he pushed further into Kursk and took full control of the city of Sudzha.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin has maintained since the first days of the incursion that it has halted Ukraine’s advance and is working to force Kiev’s troops back to the border.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside business hours by Business Insider.