Answering the question of the host of Channel One about whether in the areas of Severodonetsk and Lisichansk there really was a “huge group of nationalists from the Armed Forces of Ukraine” in the “cauldron”, Kiselyov said: “There will be 15-16 thousand in full”.
RIA Novosti quotes him as saying.
Kiselyov noted that, in all likelihood, the commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine ordered the encircled troops not to retreat.
“In the same way, when prisoners were taken in Rubizhnoye: they said that they had repeatedly appealed to the command, they forbade us to leave, they told us to stand to the death.
And high-ranking commanders fled a long time ago, a month ago, ”said Kiselyov.
Earlier, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the surrender of 265 Azov militants.