KYIV, Ukraine — With fingers nonetheless soiled from the battlefield, a dozen Russian prisoners of war sat, stony-confronted, in a meeting home of a Ukrainian information company on Saturday and explained currently being captured after their armored columns have been ambushed.

Lt. Dmitry Kovalensky, who experienced fought in a Russian tank unit and spoke at the behest of his Ukrainian captors, stated he not too long ago arrived underneath fireplace from an armed drone and shoulder-launched anti-tank missiles on a road near Sumy, in northeastern Ukraine. “The entire column burned,” he stated.

About the exact same time and a couple of miles away, at a makeshift Ukrainian army foundation in an deserted developing on the western edge of Kyiv, Ukrainian troopers organized for the same form of ambushes that took out Lieutenant Kovalensky’s unit.

Lt. Yevgeny Yarantsev, a Ukrainian officer, explained his country’s troopers fight differently than the Russians. The troops below his command arrange in tiny, nimble units that can sneak up on and ambush the lumbering columns of Russian tanks.

“They have a ton of tanks, we have a great deal of anti-tank weapons,” said Lieutenant Yarantsev, who previously fought with a volunteer group against Russia in japanese Ukraine. “In the open up industry, it will be even. It is much easier to fight in the town.”

The two youthful officers — the exact rank, but every symbolizing a distinct state — gave some of the few firsthand accounts of the fighting that have emerged in the 10-day war. The Russian was a prisoner of war speaking less than the watchful eye of closely armed Ukrainian protection officials. The Ukrainian spoke as he displayed recently attained, complex weapons from the United States.

The accounts of soldiers from both of those sides give a modest glimpse of how the war is remaining fought all around Kyiv in the north. There, relying mainly on ambush tactics, Ukrainian forces have slowed the Russian campaign to encircle and capture the money, even as Russian troops barrel throughout the south.

Lieutenant Kovalensky and the other Russian prisoners ended up presented at a information conference intended to assist Ukraine’s assert that it experienced captured a considerable amount of Russian soldiers. In their statements, the prisoners blended woodenly phrased condemnations of their have country’s management with legitimate-sounding aspects of the conflict’s early firefights.

In accordance to the guidelines governing treatment of prisoners of war less than the Geneva Conventions, governments are meant to protect a prisoner of war from becoming made into a “public curiosity,” a principle that is in some cases interpreted as not presenting them in any general public placing. The Russian soldiers looked fatigued, but confirmed no outward indicators of getting been mistreated.

The prisoners’ feedback and the actuality of their capture supported descriptions by Western navy analysts and governments of a Russian offensive that has endured grave setbacks. The Russian army’s superior numbers and products, having said that, could well reverse that trend.

“Near the finish of the day’s motion on Feb. 27, our column was attacked,” Pvt. Dmitry Gagarin of the Russian military instructed the reporters. “My commander burned and died. I ran into the forest and later surrendered to local folks.”

Lieutenant Kovalensky said he uncovered Russia would invade Ukraine only the night before the tank columns commenced moving, and that soldiers at the rank of sergeant and decrease have been not informed where they have been driving until finally right after crossing the border.

All the prisoners described remaining captured soon after their armored columns had been ambushed on roads, accounts that supported Ukraine’s assertions that its armed service had built very good use of Western-provided anti-tank weaponry, these kinds of as the American-produced Javelin missile. But unbiased analysts have also explained more mundane problems for the Russian army, including logistical snarls and a absence of gasoline.

Lieutenant Yarantsev, the Ukrainian officer, instructions what he described as a mobile group of about 500 soldiers who are skirmishing with the Russians on the western strategy to Kyiv. He claimed that their potential customers have been bolstered a few days ago when they received Barrett 50-caliber sniper rifles in a shipment from the United States.

Modern and black, with barrels so very long they appear practically like spears, the rifles were being unpacked and inspected. One particular sniper, who declined to present his title, claimed he experienced fired a single in overcome on the outskirts of Kyiv.

Lieutenant Yarantsev reported the troops were being more relaxed staying ready to garrison in buildings than in fields or forests. “I’ve seen something about war,” he mentioned. “Soldiers want to be someplace in which cellphones get the job done and where by there is internet.”

The setting up the troopers have taken up in, in a leafy household spot of the city, was cluttered with ammunition containers. Two hand grenades sat on the ground beside a sofa. The soldiers experienced an electrical kettle and presented coffee. In a hallway, a soldier oiled his Kalashnikov.

The combating has been inching nearer to the cash. Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, explained in a statement on Saturday that the Russian forces’ primary goal is to encircle Kyiv, pursuing the tactic they have pursued with scaled-down metropolitan areas this kind of as Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, which is now surrounded, with its heat and electrical power slash off.

The fighting close to Kyiv is primarily in Irpin and Bucha, two outlying cities to the northwest, in which ailments are grim. A central street in Bucha is now clogged with the burned husks of Russian armored personnel carriers, ruined in an ambush.

Stanislav Bobrytsky, a pc programmer reached by mobile phone in Irpin, mentioned he experienced not remaining his condominium because Tuesday. “All the home windows are shaking” from blasts, he claimed. “It’s extremely terrifying.”

In the heart of Kyiv, at the information convention with captured Russian troopers, the Ukrainian stability officials present refused to talk. A moderator passed all-around a microphone, featuring reporters an possibility to query the prisoners.

Lieutenant Kovalensky said he was appealing to the Russian people today to increase up and overthrow President Vladimir V. Putin due to the fact the Russian leadership experienced deceived the army’s officers about the aims of the war and had utilised the guise of a navy exercise to get ready for an invasion.

The prisoners reported they did not know what would occur to them following the information convention. Whilst they reported they ended up taken care of well, days after their capture it was unclear if they had showered or been made available thoroughly clean clothing.

Maria Varenikova contributed reporting from Lviv, Ukraine.