Visuals verified by The Post show more than 240 prisoners, which analysts say appear to include conscripts with minimal fighting experience.
By Sarah Cahlan, Evan Hill, Imogen Piper, Isabelle Khurshudyan and Anastacia Galouchka
August 25, 2024
The Washington Post
Ukrainian forces have captured more than 240 Russian soldiers since their surprise invasion of Russia’s Kursk region this month, according to an analysis of visual evidence that includes mass detentions of young troops appearing to surrender without resistance.
The Washington Post reviewed more than 130 photos and videos taken since the incursion began Aug. 6, most of which appear to have been filmed by Ukrainian soldiers and shared on social media. The analysis also included photos taken by a Post photographer at a prison housing captured Russian soldiers in Ukraine. The verified visuals depict at least 247 Russian prisoners and support Ukrainian officials’ claims to have captured hundreds of Russians during the incursion.
Some of the captured troops identify themselves in the videos as conscripts, Russians who are serving mandatory time in the military. Conscripts are not generally expected to face battle, and their capture in recent days creates a politically sensitive problem for Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to analysts. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a video of Russian soldiers surrendering en masse like that,” said Dara Massicot, a senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “My instinct upon seeing those videos was that those soldiers were not combat-experienced troops who have been fighting inside Ukraine.”
The visuals showed prisoners being taken in locations that spanned more than 14 miles across territory on Russia’s side of the border with Ukraine.
New videos and photos continue to be posted online, and The Post did not count prisoners seen in visuals it could not independently verify, meaning that the actual number of Russian prisoners taken during the offensive is much higher, probably 2,000.
In seven videos verified by The Post, prisoners refer to themselves as conscripts — men between the ages of 18 and 30 who are serving a mandatory year of military service. Conscripted troops are not paid and are poorly trained, and Putin has made pledges that they will not be sent into combat, though Russian law allows it as long as they have had four months of basic training. “Having conscripts in combat undermines the social contract between Russian families and the government that has held under Putin’s leadership since 1999,” Massicot said.
Several videos filmed less than half a mile inside Russia, in the village of Sverdlikovo, show at least 29 captured Russian soldiers. Flanked by armed Ukrainian soldiers and with their arms
raised above their heads, they are filmed by a drone as they march north along a small road lined with trees and residential buildings on one side.
In other videos, they are on the same road lying face down or kneeling with their hands behind their backs. One Ukrainian soldier films the captured soldiers as they state their names and military units to the camera. Near the Sudzha border crossing, several videos show the capture of at least 40 Russian soldiers. Drone footage shows the destruction of buildings in the checkpoint and Russian troops raising white flags in surrender.
The Ukrainian military, which shared the video on its official channels, said that the operation had been conducted by its 80th Air Assault Brigade, supported by artillery and heavy armored vehicles.
The International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights groups have stated that recording and disseminating even statements that appear voluntary by prisoners of war violates rules against exposing them to “public curiosity,” since they are inherently vulnerable and their well-being depends entirely on an enemy power.
Neither the Ukrainian nor the Russian government has said how many Russian prisoners have been taken prisoner so far during the Kursk offensive.
The head of a prison in northeast Ukraine holding soldiers taken during the offensive told a reporter from The Post during a visit this month that 320 Russians had passed through his facility in the prior 10 days on their way to other prison camps in Ukraine. Around 80 percent of the Russian soldiers being held in the Ukrainian prison visited by The Post were conscripts, the prison chief said.
It’s not clear whether taking prisoners was planned as part of the Kursk offensive or a coincidental “cherry on top,” said Mathieu Boulègue, a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “I was not expecting so many easy surrenders,” he said. “But it also shows how fragile the war narrative is in Russia, and it also shows how desperate probably these soldiers are who would much rather be with Ukraine in Ukrainian prisons or cells than fighting for Russia.”
Russian forces in the area of the Kursk offensive were likely surprised, under the control of different ministries or organizations that didn’t communicate well, and inexperienced in combat, all of which contributed to Ukraine’s success, Massicot said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has referred to the capture of so many Russian prisoners as refilling the “exchange fund” — soldiers to trade for captured Ukrainian troops. Kyrylo Budanov, the chief of the Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, has said they will prioritize the return of Azov Brigade fighters who were captured during Ukraine’s defense of the eastern city of Mariupol more than two years ago.
The return of those prisoners has been a sensitive issue in Ukraine, with large demonstrations calling for their freedom taking place most weekends. Hundreds are believed to still be in Russian captivity.
Siobhán O’Grady and Ed Ram in northeastern Ukraine and Samuel Oakford in New York contributed to this report.
Isabelle Khurshudyan is a foreign correspondent based in Kyiv. [Ukraine bureau chief]. A University of South Carolina graduate, she has worked at The Washington Post since 2014, previously as a correspondent in the Moscow bureau and as a sports reporter covering the Washington Capitals. Education: University of South Carolina.
Sarah Cahlan is a video reporter and one of the founding members of the Visual Forensics team. Her work combines open source and forensic technologies with traditional journalism and documentary filmmaking. She shared in a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the January 6 insurrection and a Dupont for her coverage of the clearing of Lafayette Square. She started VF in 2020 after a year on the Fact Checker desk. Before coming to The Post, she directed a short documentary about the historical inaccuracies of gender roles. As an NBC/NAHJ fellow, she reported, produced and wrote stories about science, tech and Latino culture. Cahlan has also covered health and the environment in California. Education: University of California Berkeley, MA in Journalism ; George Washington University, BA in Archaeology and Environmental Studies
Evan Hill is an investigative reporter at The Washington Post focused on open-source and visual forensic techniques. He joined The Post from the New York Times in 2023 and was previously a reporter on The Times’s Visual Investigations team, where he shared in three Pulitzer Prizes. Hill was a lead reporter on an investigation that proved the United States killed 10 civilians in Kabul in the final drone strike of the 20-year war in Afghanistan. The investigation prompted the Defense Department to admit its error and offer compensation and relocation to the family and won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. He was also a lead reporter on an investigation that proved Russia repeatedly bombed hospitals in rebel-held Syria, which won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in international reporting, and a reporter on an investigation proving the Russian unit responsible for atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine, which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Prior to joining The Times in 2019, he was a Beirut-based researcher with Human Rights Watch, where he investigated torture, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and other abuses in the Middle East. He previously worked as a features reporter for Al Jazeera America in New York City and as a Doha-based reporter for Al Jazeera English, where he covered the Arab Spring. He started his journalism career in San Francisco, where he he reported on the police, criminal courts and District Attorney Kamala Harris.. Education: Northwestern University, BA in Journalism; Columbia University, MA in International Security Policy