UPDATED: An interview of a captured Russian soldier based in the Kuriles indicates at least one (under-strength) company with 94 personnel out of a claimed garrison of 500 troops, presumably from either the 18th Division’s 49th Regiment or its HQ, deployed to Ukraine in June.
The soldier in question claims to have officially been a specialist operator of an SBR-3 ground surveillance radar, but had never used the equipment which was not transported to Ukraine. His company traveled to Ukraine by military cargo plane over five days (transfers: Iturup-Khabarovsk-Amur-Irkutsk-Omsk-Belgorod) and received a special pay raise of $56 per day in Ukraine.
Upon arriving in June 9, his unit waited several days for ground transportation, during which he claims 20 personnel were wounded or killed by “pretty accurate” Ukrainian artillery fire. He was then dispatched into the village of Krasnopillia (northwest of Siversk and Sloviansk), where his subunit of 20 soldiers was told await reinforcements in a cramped basement. His unit waited there for five days under terrifying artillery fire, subsisting on dry rations and food preserves in the cellar, without any officers. “It was clear in the end we would all be killed,” he stated.