The Freedom of Russia Legion on Aug. 16 appealed to Russian troops to surrender or switch sides and join the fight "for the normal future of Russia."
The statement came amid an ongoing Ukrainian incursion in Russia's Kursk Oblast, with the estimates of Russian captives ranging from several hundred to 2,000.
There is no indication that the legion, a unit of Russians fighting on Kyiv's side, was involved in the operation despite carrying out limited cross-border raids earlier this year and in 2023. The unit's statement did not directly mention the Kursk incursion.
"Your political officers, sitting in the warm rear, tell you not to surrender but to blow yourself up with your own grenade," the legion's statement on Telegram read.
"But hundreds of Russian soldiers ignore this criminal order, choosing to live rather than to die for a medal for some colonel or a new mansion for (Chief of Staff Valery) Gerasimov."
The legion called upon Russian soldiers to "surrender to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as (their) comrades did." Those who "want to continue fighting for the normal future of Russia" were invited to join the unit.
A source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told the Kyiv Independent that Ukrainian forces captured over 100 Russian and Chechen troops in Kursk Oblast in a single day on Aug. 14, adding it was the single largest number of enemy soldiers captured at once.
Ukraine declined to provide a full number of Russian captives taken during the Kursk incursion following the Kyiv Independent's request.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said that "hundreds" of Russian soldiers had been captured as of Aug. 13, while an undisclosed Ukrainian colonel told The Independent news outlet that the number may be as high as 2,000.
