More than 240 Russian soldiers have been captured since the beginning of the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region, according to analysis by The Washington Post.
The newspaper examined over 130 photos and videos documenting the surrender of Russian troops since the offensive began on Aug. 6.
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Most of the footage, filmed by Ukrainian forces and later shared on social media, shows at least 247 Russian soldiers in captivity.
The Washington Post geolocated the videos, identifying key locations such as the village of Sverdlikovo near the Ukraine border, where 29 soldiers were captured, and the Sudzha border crossing, where 40 more were taken prisoner.
The analysis excluded unverified videos and photos, suggesting that the actual number of captured soldiers could be higher. Ukrainian military sources also indicated that the number of prisoners could be in the hundreds.
Footage from the Ukrainian military shows that some of the captured soldiers are conscripts.
A previous report by The Washington Post from mid-August detailed a prison where captured Russian soldiers were held.
According to the prison's head, 320 Russian prisoners passed through the facility in the first 10 days of the Ukrainian offensive, with only 20 percent being professional soldiers, while the majority were conscripts.
On Ukraine's 33rd Independence Day, Aug. 24, 115 Ukrainian soldiers were released from Russian captivity and returned home.
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This marked the first exchange since the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched an offensive in the Kursk region and the 55th exchange overall. This offensive has captured hundreds of enemy soldiers in one of Russia’s worst defeats of the war. The Ukrainian government has been tight-lipped about operational details.
Still, senior officials said Russian soldiers taken into Ukrainian custody over the past ten days number at least in the high hundreds.
Unconfirmed Ukrainian soldier and media accounts have mostly placed the total number of Russian service personnel taken captive at between 1,000 and 2,000 men, with the figure climbing daily.
The last time Moscow saw hundreds of its soldiers taken prisoner in combat was in 1996, during the First Chechen War, when guerillas in a surprise offensive surrounded and overran dozens of Russian unit bases and field positions deployed around the Chechen capital city Grozny.
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