In the Russian media, videos of captured Ukrainian soldiers who allegedly decided to stay in the temporarily occupied territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions because of their reluctance to fight and the fear of being on the front line again are widely distributed. Oleksandr Zhizhyn is among the prisoners who talk about it. Russian propagandists distributed the video with him back in early April. Then he said that his team was at the Mariupol metallurgical plant named after Ilyich, which the Russians occupied on March 5. Zhizhin surrendered and since then became a hero in the Russian media with his fiction about the crimes of "Azov". On August 13, Zhizhyn once again became the hero of the Russian news that more and more Ukrainian prisoners of war are refusing to return home and, they say, are even declaring their readiness to act with weapons in their hands on the side of the occupiers of Donbas.

Russian propaganda spreads such messages from time to time to strengthen the opinion in society that surrendering is better than defending Ukraine from the invaders. And also that prisoners of war live much better in prison than in freedom. In this way, the Russians cover up the fact that hunger, abuse, and murder await Ukrainian prisoners of war.

The other day it became known that Russia is preparing a show trial of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Mariupol. For this purpose, the occupiers assembled prison cells on the stage of the Chamber Philharmonic.